Productivity gains can be achieved through corporate social
responsibility activities, particularly when it comes to
anticipating government action. CSR does not mean conservation for
the sake of conservation; it also recognizes that today's
conservation measure is tomorrow's (potentially) costly
regulation. Businesses that anticipate tomorrow's regulatory
reforms can adjust to a new playing field more easily, thus
increasing productivity in the name of competition and
profit.
For example, the day will soon come when businesses are charged
a market price for water they use from public systems. The business
that waits too long to build conservation techniques into their
systems will suddenly bear accelerated costs for updating their
system, lose productivity during that refit and have decreased
productivity in the short to medium term. The business that
anticipated this new cost will have amortized the costs over the
long term, adjusted to the conservation and
