Add the cost to the product that is normally paid by society generally (e.g. Pollution, health, global warming) as a tax on dirty products such as fossil fuels. During Recession Issue Green Stamps of Equivalent worth to the tax good for purchase of sustainable products. This puts Green Stamps into everyones pockets, we could also have other ways of getting Green Stamps into peoples hands - for example : This is essentially a negative Carbon Credit - but the concept can be applied to all products that have social costs the seller is able to pass on without being accountable for.
Each Person is issued 1,000 Green Stamps a year for Green Energy Purchases, He can use these to buy carbon and polluting energy as well tax free.
Once he is out of green stamps he must buy polluting products with the full long term estimated cost of pollution etc in the product price , say a 200% tax, but during the recession he would get back an equivalent number of green stamps as the tax to be used on green energy.