I've been getting more phone calls than usual from reporters, and I was wondering about it a bit until it struck me -- of course! Earth Day is coming.

April 22, 2010 will mark the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. As the Earth Day Network says, "Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. While climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, it also presents the greatest opportunity -- an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy now and for the future."

Building a healthy and prosperous economy sounds like the kind of thing that deserves media attention. So call me a grumpy environmentalist, but why do we have to wait for April 22 each year to hear about it? Practically every day there are companies building wind farms and solar cells across the country, scientists making break-through discoveries in vehicle and energy technology and citizens choosing to get involved.

Why do we have to wait for April 22 each year to hear about companies acting on sustainability?

{related_content}And while it's true that many companies pitch environmental stories on Earth Day -- it's their best chance of getting coverage -- more and more of them are acting on it every day.

A recent study by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship revealed that, despite the recession, an increasing number of American businesses are expanding environmental efforts like greening of products, services and operations and integrating citizenship into their business strategy, with 75 percent of CEOs leading the agenda.

Why? There are many reasons -- a renewed focus on cost management, opportunities to capture market share, supplier pressures and a new level of corporate transparency, to name just a few.

Or perhaps it's just that it makes good business sense to understand how your products and operations impact and are impacted by the world around you. When natural resources are running scarce and prices for basic business necessities like water, fuel and raw materials are so volatile, smart execs know that environmental innovation must be a core part of their business strategy.

This is reinforced in a new report by the management consultants at A.T. Kearny, which showed that companies focused on sustainability outperformed their peers by 15 percent during the financial crisis. I'd love to see a story written on April 23rd about that trend!

Gwen Ruta, vice president for Corporate Partnerships at Environmental Defense Fund, spearheads the organization's work with leading multinational companies to develop innovative, business-based solutions to environmental challenges and drive change through the corporate value chain. Her post is available at EDF’s Innovation Exchange blog and is reprinted with permission.

Image CC licensed by Flickr user Ernst Moeksis.