In these tough economical times, it is easy for consumers who had genuinely been trying to greenify their lifestyles to fall back on their old habits. The reason for this is simple—those products are cheaper for the time being. However, prices on green items have actually been nearing those of their less-green counterparts for some time.

Public demand for green items has done a lot to help bring the prices down, because sustainable and eco-friendly items are being more widely produced. Companies are actually adopting policies and procedures to help with the current environmental dilemma.

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Yvo de Boer, who heads the Bonn-based U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, is a bit more optimistic about the current financial crisis than George Monbiot is. Yvo de Boer says that the current financial crisis could “hasten” countries efforts to create a greener and more sustainable economy.

“The credit crisis can be used to make progress in a new direction, an opportunity for global green economic growth,” Yvo de Boer told a news conference.

“The credit crunch I believe is an opportunity to rebuild the financial system that would underpin sustainable growth,” and that “governments now have an opportunity to create and enforce policy which stimulates private competition to fund clean industry”, Yvo de Boer said.

Yvo de Boer said that to be able to “create new markets, investment opportunities and job creation” the climate meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 must be successful.

Read the whole interview over at wbcsd.org