After a somewhat patchy start, environmentalism has hit the big time, and everyone from Sainsbury’s to Leonardo di Caprio wants a piece of the action.

The European Commission (EC) is no exception. Its president Jose Manuel Barosso told the Institute of Directors’ (IoD) annual convention last week that the EC is better placed to lead on green issues than individual governments. A transnational body for transnational concerns, he said.

It is certainly convenient for such a bandwagon to arrive just at the moment that the European Union is crying out for a raison d’etre. But setting cynicism aside, there are serious lessons here for business – for the benefit of both the environment and the moral reputation of the free market.

Like the bad old days of rapacious factory owners, capitalism has had a rough trot in the past few years. It is accused of a multitude of greed-driven ills – from children working in sweatshops, to exploited consumer ignorance, to the demise of the town centre, to the absence of affordable drugs for the developing world.

Reclamation of solid ground was top of the agenda at the IoD. Director general Miles Templeman called on members to ‘stand up and speak up about what business contributes to society’, to say ‘unequivocally and without embarrassment that business is good for you’.

Not only do green concerns top the moral league, environmentalism is also an area where business, like the EU, may have a genuinely powerful role to play.

John Elkington, founder of corporate responsibility consultancy SustainAbility, says that when Hurricane Katrina wiped out 150 Wal-Mart shops, the US retail giant twigged that climate change is not somebody else’s problem. And the potential such a large organisation has for addressing, for example, carbon emissions, in both its own business and those of its huge supply chain, is considerable.

John Madejski, entrepreneur, publishing magnate and chairman of Reading F ootball Club, says it is up to business to save the world. Governments will not have the will because of the tensions between them. Business, large and small, is where the real power lies, he says.

Ironically, the profit motive may yet prove to be our salvation. And even the morality of capitalism may not be so bad. Historically, progress was driven by war. Given the choice between that and greed, greed must be preferable.

So consider your carbon footprint, look to your bottom line and think of the money in finding the answers.