What’s really behind the net-zero zealotry of big businesses?

Boris Johnson’s biggest challenge at COP26 doesn’t lie in avoiding a finger-wagging from Greta Thunberg, who won’t be going. Neither will it be in preventing the party being spoiled by Insulate Britain holding up the limousines of the great and good. Nor will Johnson have to struggle too hard to persuade his fellow world leaders to sign some kind of declaration strong enough to be spun as a triumph but anodyne enough to allow China, Russia and others to ignore it.

No, the PM’s biggest challenge lies in fending off the demands of big businesses, who have latched themselves to the cause of net zero with great gusto, aware of its value to their brands. You can’t have missed McDonald’s lorries, now emblazoned with the boast that the company recycles all its cooking oil for biodiesel. There is Nestlé, which recently tried to burnish its green credentials by launching a vegan ‘shrimp’ made from seaweed, peas and elephant yam.