Shared Sacrifice, or Business Opportunity?
How about both? The NYTimes has an interesting article on how Japan is dealing with their commitments to the Kyoto Protocol (which calls for reduction in greenhouse gases produced by individual nations):

Even though Japan is already among the most frugal countries in the world, the government recently introduced a national campaign, urging the Japanese to replace their older appliances and buy hybrid vehicles, all part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming. And big companies are jumping on the bandwagon, counting on the moves to increase sales of their latest models. On the Matsushita appliance showroom floor these days, the numbers scream not the low, low yen prices, but the low, low kilowatt-hours. A vacuum-insulated refrigerator, which comes with a buzzer if the door stays open more than 30 seconds, boasts that it will use 160 kilowatt-hours a year, one-eighth of that needed by standard models a decade ago. An air-conditioner with a robotic dust filter cleaner proclaims it uses 884 kilowatt-hours, less than half of what decade-old ones consumed. "It's like squeezing a dry towel" for the last few drips, said Katsumi Tomita, an environmental planner for the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, maker of the Panasonic brand and known for its attention to energy efficiency. "The honest feeling of Japanese people is, 'How can we do more?' "

To the frugal point, here are some numbers:

The country has the world's second-largest economy, but it produces virtually no oil or gas, importing 96 percent of its energy needs. This dependence on imports has prodded the nation into tremendous achievements in improved efficiency. France and Germany, where government crusades against global warming have become increasingly loud, expend almost 50 percent more energy to produce the equivalent of $1 in economic activity. Britain's energy use, on the same measure, is nearly double; the United States nearly triple; and China almost eight times as much. From 1973 to today, Japan's industrial sector nearly tripled its output, but kept its energy consumption roughly flat. To produce the same industrial output as Japan, China consumes 11.5 times the energy.

So, how is Japan getting these results? Proper messaging by the government to the public of the importance of conservation, as well as a combination of government regulations and taxes which in turn have spurred innovation in products that people want to buy:

With personal use accounting for the bulk of April's $6.4 billion bill for imported oil, Tokyo is trying to encourage greater efficiency by pushing fuel taxes even higher, lifting the pump price for gasoline to $4.70 a gallon, the highest in a decade. [...] ...Japan has extended its minicar tax breaks to hybrid cars - fuel-efficient vehicles that rely on a combination of a gasoline engine and an electric motor. Hybrid sales, while still relatively low in Japan, are growing fast. And in this environment, Toyota and Honda have become the world leaders in hybrid technology. [...] The next energy-savings battleground is the home front. After $1.3 billion in subsidies, about 160,000 homes have solar power systems. Solar power remains two to three times as expensive as the electricity supplied to households. But homeowners say that with time, the "free" electricity pays for the high installation costs. And the government is willing to devote taxes to the effort, preferring to spur rural employment through solar power installations to help reduce payments for foreign oil, coal and gas.

The article also details how some other countries are responding to KP:

In Germany, where heating accounts for the largest share of home energy use, a new energy saving law has as its standard the "seven-liter house," designed to use just seven liters of oil to heat one square meter for a year, about one-third the amount consumed by a house built in 1973, before the first oil price shock. Three-liter houses - even one-liter designs - are now being built. In Singapore, where year-round air-conditioning often accounts for 60 percent of a building's power bill, new codes are encouraging the use of things like heat-blocking window films and hookups to neighborhood cooling systems, where water is chilled overnight. In Hong Kong, many more buildings now have "intelligent" elevator systems in which computers minimize unnecessary stops. Parking restrictions encourage bus and rail transit, and authorities are also pushing hybrid cars equipped with engines that shut down when idling.

With BushCo still hell-bent on nothing-but-extraction for an energy policy, US businesses will not have a market environment that promotes these new, innovative products.