A few years ago, when I was working as communications director in the Seattle mayor's office, I tried to ban the word "sustainable" for a simple reason: No one outside of environmental activists knew what it meant. Today, the meaning is no more precise, but almost everybody's using it. We're all going green.

As a social ethic, "sustainable" is one of the most powerful trends across the globe, affecting international relations, trade policy, politics, land use, transportation planning and our daily lives. It's not just about using less fuel when oil costs $100 a barrel. For many, it's a moral imperative.

The change has been coming for years, but I'm constantly taking note of my own choices that surprise even me, an admitted cheapskate. Once I scoffed at "organic" (another hazy term) food, but now I find myself grabbing the organic milk and paying little notice to the price difference. But the difference is significant. At my neighborhood Safeway, for example, a half-gallon of organic costs $4.19, versus just $2.29 for regular milk.

Author John Naisbitt would call this another megatrend, and the message for anyone in business is this: Ride the wave. Or drown.

If you're Boeing, you're well positioned. That new 787 Dreamliner is always called "fuel sipping," and that's not just out of concern for airlines that buy jet fuel. Consumers want to associate with companies that look green. Shareholders demand change. Boeing joined the Carbon Disclosure Project, an independent nonprofit organization that tracks carbon emissions and global warming impacts from the world's 3,000 largest companies.

No doubt, the "sustainable" dynamic imposes new costs and regulations on business, but the upside is a willingness by customers to pay more for goods and services associated with this ethic.

Think ripple effect. Take one customer buying pricey milk and spread that behavior across the economy, and the long-term effects are stunning. In Texas, for example, longtime oilman T. Boone Pickens is raising eyebrows for his plans to build a $10 billion wind farm, a collection of giant turbines that generate electricity by harnessing the power of wind.

He's not alone. According to The New York Times, new wind farms representing $700 million in investment went into operation in Texas in January. The home of Texas tea now gets 3 percent of its energy from wind. Texas is now the top producer of wind power in the United States, followed by Washington at fifth and Oregon at seventh. Washington is already home to the largest wind farm in the nation, the Stateline project southeast of the Tri-Cities.

Wind investments mean jobs -- 20,000 nationwide in the industry, where technicians with no training get $15 to $20 an hour. Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Ore., is cranking out trained technicians, who start at $25 or more per hour.

Is this for real? Many think so. John Doerr, one of Silicon Valley's most successful investors, is leading an initiative to put $200 million into green technology, an industry built around services, training and gizmos for managing energy. One example: Seattle's McKinstry Co., which started 50 years ago as a heating and plumbing company but now helps clients save money on energy. Sen. Barack Obama toured McKinstry in February, calling it a leader in the "green economy."

Rogers Weed and Nick Hanauer, two local investors who did well in the digital world -- Weed is a former Microsoft executive, while Hanauer founded aQuantive, the online advertising agency now owned by Microsoft -- are calling on Washington state to get behind the governor's Climate Action and Green Jobs bill. "Washington has an emerging cluster of companies that are already leaders in cutting-edge green technologies aimed at reducing fossil fuel carbon emissions," they wrote recently.