The next government must harness businesses if it is to meet the UK’s environment goals

Long-term thinking, by which I mean thinking beyond 2011, is in short supply at the moment. Of course on the eve of an election and with severe economic challenges to navigate, you can forgive policy makers for focusing on the here and now. However, short-term political and economic issues, important though they are for today, seem almost trivial when we look at the bigger picture.

Predictions for the future are deeply worrying. For example, that the world population will reach eight billion by 2030; that food consumption will increase by 50 per cent and demand for energy by 45 per cent.

Looking at this from my position as the chief executive of a food company, it is all too apparent how hard this would make life for us. We are critically reliant on a steady and reliable supply of agricultural produce. Every unpredictable weather pattern, every flood, every drought, and every crop failure impacts business. It disrupts farmers and growers, it lowers their yields, it increases waste levels – and it hits all bottom lines.

We need to plan ahead if we want to stay in business for more than just the next decade: we need to mitigate the risks of changing environmental conditions. So at PepsiCo UK, we've set a series of stretching goals – what we call, a " path to zero". This means over the next ten years, we aim to make our business fossil fuel free and to unplug our largest factories from the water mains. We aim to send nothing to landfill across our entire supply chain, and for our product packaging to be only renewable, recyclable or bio-degradable.

Meeting these targets will require investment, ingenuity, and the courage to hold firm in the face of short-term challenges. But it seems, as we gather pace along this path, that the scale of our ambition is beginning to outstrip the policy framework in which we currently operate.

It is a rare thing when the interests of business, government and NGOs coincide. The government could, quite easily, harness the resources and influence of business to help them achieve their environmental goals. They can't let an opportunity like that go to waste, but this is exactly what will happen unless the policy framework works with the instincts of businesses.

What we need is a floor price on carbon, enabling businesses to plan ahead. Alongside this, we need a tax system which encourages green behaviours. Much time and effort is going into designing ways of penalising the profits businesses make, but think how different the UK economy – and the UK government's carbon emission targets – would look, if tax penalised environmental damage. In the words of Al Gore: "We should tax what we burn, not what we earn".

If we have a financial stick, how about a financial carrot? Many businesses are convinced of the business case for transitioning to a low carbon economy but are thwarted by a lack of funds needed to kick-start the process. Incentives for investment in green technologies could be a powerful tool. They will be critical if UK businesses are to make the necessary changes and be able to remain competitive in a global economy.

A green tax switch, with incentives for new technologies and a floor price on carbon would set the UK apart – as a leader on the world stage in creating a green economy. It would attract business investment, generate green jobs and allow companies to meet the full extent of our environmental ambitions. We are ready to put our weight and our resources, behind such an endeavour. The next government just needs to meet us half way.

Richard Evans is the President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland