In order to build a bright green future, we need to move beyond green gestures and ecofads and start working together to create sustainable systems. We made that point on Earth Day, but now the UK's Sustainable Consumption Roundtable has just made it much more powerfully in a new report:

Ministers can no longer rely on a "heroic minority" of green shoppers and must take urgent action to widen the appeal of environmentally friendly goods and services, the government's own advisory body has said.

The Sustainable Consumption Roundtable says radical steps were needed to clear damaging products from the shelves and to force businesses to admit their environmental impact. It wants smart electricity meters in all houses by 2012 and taxes introduced on domestic flights to "wake people up to the impact of flying".

"The focus needs to be on creating a supportive framework for collective progress rather than exhorting individuals to go against the grain," it says.

The report itself, I Will if You Will, is available as a free download and I couldn't recommend it more highly. As the first sentence says, "On the key environmental issues of our day, progress depends on enabling people to act together." In other words, changing the world is a team sport.