Whether you think being "green" - in your company's use of energy, transportation, etc. - is mostly a matter of putting on a good and trendy corporate face (with side benefits) or mostly a matter of doing what's right, you would do well to read this piece by Governing Magazine.

It captures a trend taking hold in city halls nationwide: the job of sustainability director. Anyone who does business in Seattle knows that Mayor Greg Nickels is big on sustainability and that the city has some well-developed street cred when it comes to fighting climate change.

But that's Seattle. What the current trend portends is more champions of green and sustainability and smart growth filling city jobs in lots of cities, big and medium-sized.

There are now 805 mayors nationally who have signed pledges to slash their cities' greenhouse gas emissions in line with the targets established by the Kyoto Protocol, according to Governing. And about three dozen cities now have sustainability directors of their own; these jobs range in duties from the broader fight against climate change to the narrower goal of energy efficiency.

In any case, businesses large and small should pay attention to this trend. There may be more opportunities. There may be more headaches from new regulations. (I searched but couldn't find a comprehensive list of so-called sustainability directors in Puget Sound and Washington state. If anyone has a line on this, I'd love to hear from them).

Governing describes the essence of the trend this way: "The idea is to have one person - or in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and other big cities, entire staffs - dedicated to squeezing greenhouse gas emissions out of the way government does business, and to serve as both a liaison and a beacon to businesses and citizens who want to limit their own carbon output."

A beacon to businesses. You could reverse this idea. Businesses could show cities how it's done. Some already do. I'm reminded of Watson Furniture Group. The Poulsbo company's blunt-talking president sees going green as being good for the bottom line. He also believes it's the right thing to do. And the company has an "environmental agitator" (I prefer that title to "sustainability director") to keep it environmentally honest.

If Governing's reported trend tells us anything it's that more businesses face the prospect of not just talking to the person behind the permit counter but also the person on the upper floor in charge of sustainability.