April 4, 2008 - "Radical greening" - an ill-considered corporate response to consumer, regulatory, and economic pressures to go green - is one of the top ten challenges facing business today, according to "Strategic Business Risk 2008," a new report from Ernst & Young.Move too quickly and you could paint yourself into a corner, the report suggests; move too slowly and you'll be left in the dust. On the issue of climate regulation, for example:

Carbon trading is a reality in Europe and will almost certainly happen in the US. The caps that are set directly influence the cost of generation with different fuels and hence can make a nonsense of the wrong fuel generation mix strategy. Fixed ages for renewable generation are also likely to come. The imposition of fixed percentages of renewable power can expose severe strategic errors of corporate judgment.

"The strategic challenge centers on how much 'radical greening firms should undertake," the report concludes. "The pace and extent of this new green revolution is hard to predict but what is almost certain is that some firms will get the right fuel mix, real estate portfolio, or carbon footprint, while others will go either too radically green or, more likely, not green enough.

Download the report here (PDF).