The news that BAE has demonstrated the first hybrid-engine tank is likely to spark a predictable response from the green movement as commentators rush to point out the irony of trying to help save the planet when your industry's raison d'etre is the ability to destroy large chunks of it.

The tank announcement put me in mind of the last time BAE tried to bolster its green credentials with the announcement it was working on "environmentally-friendly" weapons, including "reduced lead" bullets, "reduced smoke" grenades and rockets with fewer toxins.

In a pretty ill-judged quote Debbie Allen, BAE Systems director of CSR, said, "We try to make [our weapons] as safe for the user as possible, to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment".

Green campaigners quickly pointed out that there were some rather critical components of the environment that BAE's technology did try to have a rather large impact on.

"BAE is determined to try to make itself look ethical, but they make weapons to kill people and it's utterly ridiculous to suggest they are environmentally friendly," ranted Symon Hill of Campaign Against Arms Trade.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace joined forces with the anti-war campaigners to argue on its blog that "it's not enough to make those munitions Green – they've got to be peaceful as well. So when they perfect the lower-carbon armoured vehicle that fires only organic flower seeds, the reduced-smoke grenade that only explodes into blossom, and the no-lead, no-metal nerf-bullet that reduce not just collatoral damage but direct damage as well, we'll be first in line to cheer".

With its latest tanks, however, BAE appears to have learnt its lesson and the company's press release makes no mention of the hybrid engine's eco-credentials, instead focusing on how their enhanced fuel efficiency limits the military's "logistics footprint", making its supply lines less vulnerable.

But the question has to be asked, what exactly is wrong with the defence industry wanting to become more sustainable?

You can object to war, the global arms trade and the nefarious activities of many defence firms, but none of this is going to make an industry that is estimated to be worth over a trillion dollars a year disappear. It is here to stay, so it might as well be as sustainable as possible.

All but the most foaming sociopath would accept that the arms industry is not something we'd like to see in an ideal world, but it is not an ideal world and the arms trade remains a key component of the global economy - effectively excluding it from the green business movement on the grounds that you don't like what it does is just daft.

Arms manufacturers deserve our complete condemnation every time they engage in dodgy deals or develop and sell weapons in breach of international regulations, but they also deserve a degree of support and guidance when they do try to limit their environmental impact.

Time and again the knee-jerk reaction from green campaigners to any initiative to improve a business' sustainability is to vilify the corporation involved and measure all judgements against some Utopian ideal that is completely untenable within current economic models.

It is about time there was an acceptance that this constant hectoring only serves to alienate the majority of the population and reinforces the stereotype that all environmentalists are lentil-scoffing hippies.

I have a huge admiration for the green lobby and believe it plays an extremely important role in keeping many businesses honest. But if it wishes to achieve the mass support needed to drive genuine change then there needs to be a wider acceptance that the low carbon changes it wants to see have to be achieved in large part within the current economic model. And if that means occasionally working with businesses that environmentalists have a long-running antipathy towards, then so be it.