The case of Grainger plc v Nicholson has already received a hell of a lot of coverage for extending the religion or belief discrimination regulations to cover belief in climate change. To summarise: the head of sustainability (Nicholson) was made redundant from property company (Grainger), and claims he was unfairly dismissed because of his belief in climate change.

But what really interests me is this – why does a company have a head of sustainability if it’s going to baulk over the incumbent’s belief that climate change is, you know, a bit bad, and that the firm should maybe try to do something to help the cause? We must, of course, point out that Grainger disputes this issue – its corporate affairs director Dave Butler told the Independent: "Grainger absolutely maintains that Mr Nicholson's redundancy was driven solely by the operational needs of the company during a period of extraordinary market turbulence.”

Some rather illuminating points, however, did come out of the mud-slinging. John Bowers QC, arguing on behalf of the company, said: “What Mr Nicholson asserts is a scientific claim – that if we don't urgently cut carbon emissions we will not avoid catastrophic climate change. There is nothing philosophical about that.” Well, OK, but it pretty much sums up what you’d want your head of sustainability to believe, doesn’t it?

So let’s assume that Grainger is as green as the Jolly Green Giant, and that Nicholson was merely another victim of the recession. Even then, the case does raise the spectre that there may be one or two companies with sustainability or CR professionals, environmental plans, campaigns entitled “Let’s Go Green”, etc, that are, in fact, merely paying lip service for the sake of good PR. That, perhaps, such companies don’t fully believe the hype but are happy to let people with token job titles make it look like they do. The problem is, once you allow those token professionals to look into the issue, they will soon realise the scale of the problem, the paucity of the employer’s actions to tackle it and the urgent need for wide-scale change.

With the UN conference on climate change fast approaching, all these issues will soon be brought into sharp relief. Those companies who truly are green can add their signature to the Copenhagen Communiqué – a call from businesses for an international climate deal to be signed in Copenhagen this December. I’ve just checked – Grainger isn’t one of the signatories. Yet.