Guidant Financial Group Blog

As the Copenhagen climate change conference progresses, it is becoming evident that the issues surrounding global warming and climate change are really issues about big business versus small business.

As reported in the New York Times (see No Slowdown of Global Warming, Agency Says), talks at the conference appear to be focused more on the discrepancies between rich and poor countries and what their obligations should be in the new draft treaty circulating the conference, than they are on what collective solutions can be created to help out all parties.

We can’t help but wonder if this isn’t really more of an issue about big business versus small business. Something that the article also notes is that there is news circulating that the US and Britain have potentially suppressed new studies that actually discredit the ideas behind global warming. Isn’t it funny that attendees are so concerned with who is to blame that they are overlooking the fact that they could be fighting over nothing?

It’s kind of like when mom and dad fight over who had the lost television remote last while their kid is clicking through the channels only a few feet away.

The reality is, whether it’s about global warming or market share, small countries and small businesses are always going to take issue with the big guys. That being said, what we can sometimes forget is that the little guys have something the big guys don’t – flexibility.

Do you ever notice that it’s really only the small businesses that can go totally green? Large companies have tried it, but there are just too many moving parts for the impact to be all that noticeable. The same is true for cutting costs. During the recent downturn, many large companies went out of business because they were unable to quickly adjust to the new economic climate.

It’s true that some small businesses ended up closing their doors as well, but we would argue that in times of change, small business has the upper hand.

As far as the climate conference is going, small, poor countries most likely share less of the responsibility for this (potential) global-warming crisis. With that being said, they also have fewer infrastructures in place that would need to be remodeled to allow for more green practices and more potential for a larger impact.

Let’s hope that we all see this conference as an opportunity to lessen every country’s negative effect on our planet. Apart from that, though, this conference may be a perfect opportunity for small countries (and small business) to turn large countries’ (and big business’) inability to react effectively to the problem at hand to support for their own economic growth.