You’d have to have been living on a rapidly melting iceberg to have missed the fact that global warming is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting discussion regarding the role web can play in helping reducing carbon emissions. The gravity of the issues discussed were brought most in to focus hearing David Strahan talking about his recently published book The Last Oil Shock which examines the alarming rate that out oil reserves appear to be depleting. While the debate lacked focus at times, it was clear that we can all play a small role in reducing carbon emissions, though subtle changes in the way we live our life.

Smart businesses seem to be switching on to this trend too, recognising that being environmentally friendly is not only ethically commendable, but can also be good for business. For consumers, however, there still seems to be a lot of conflicting information flying about, as each big business tries to out-wit the other touting their green credentials, which is why we’re starting to work on a new feature which will enable businesses to inform their customers on how they are working towards creating greener services and products. Be it, as simple as using only recycled paper and ink cartridges to sourcing all products locally, we hope to add a new dimension to the way people search for local businesses.

From our research so far, there doesn’t seem to be any standardised mode of assessing how green a particular business is in the UK, so in the truest sense of the web, we also intend to allow users to comment on a business’ green credentials in the event that a particular business is over-earnest in their claims.

I’ll keep you posted with more developments as we get ready to launch our new green feature.

tags: Energy 2.0, David Strahan, The Last Oil Shock, etribes