“Green” had finally become “cool”. Support for sustainable and carbon-neutral businesses was to the point where no one could ignore it, if they wanted to stay profitable.

I was an environmental auditor. My job used to be to ensure companies met a minimum government-mandated standard. Now, it was part of how they competed. Today I was at an experimental restaurant that grew all their own food and claimed upwards of 2% total efficiency — all the way from sunlight on leaves, to the calories that go into your mouth. This was unusually high, especially considering their menu…

“So you’re able to offer real, honest-to-goodness meat products? It’s not imitation?” I asked, my clipboard at the ready.

“In a sense. It’s not tofu, anyway.”

“In a sense?”

“Let me show you the, uh, animal pens,” the manager offered. He then took me out back and pointed at a number of small wooden boxes. “Mealworms. Processed, they taste just like chicken.”

“Your customers are cool with eating bugs?”

“The customers don’t know.”