Greening the supply chain is one element of this Drive to Green that involves everything from building alternative fuel vehicles and many other kinds of product innovations. But greening the supply chain is connected to this broader business strategy that I talked about at the earlier part of my remarks. And so we're looking to work with these suppliers to achieve energy efficiencies, reducing emissions footprints, looking at opportunities for reducing water consumption. A whole range of indicators -- sometimes involving capital investments, sometimes involving just good housekeeping, but we have a system for tracking these improvements, working hands-on with the suppliers day-in and day-out.

TH: So again you talked about aligning these initiatives with the companies' core values and overarching sustainability strategy. Why is this important?

TY: Well, I think you only have to read today's headlines to see the consequences of companies who don't adhere to the goal of greening their supply chain. We saw this in some of the pharmaceutical companies where their suppliers were mom and pop operations in China and the resulting products were subject to contamination that had very direct adverse impacts on public health.

I think we've seen this in the food supply. I think we've seen it in even something as mundane as pet food. And so companies, their reputations, their risks of the business become magnified when they lose control of the integrity of their operations as conducted by suppliers. So these examples continue to mount and I think global companies are under increased scrutiny to fix this situation.

TH: Now, some of these global companies that we're talking about have these massive supply chains that are spanning continents. What are the most significant obstacles that are facing these companies?

TY: Well, I think there's several significant obstacles. One of them is the sheer magnitude of the supply chain. Some of these global companies have tens and tens of thousands of suppliers. And it's very, very difficult to keep an individual tracking and accountability of their performance. So I just think the magnitude and complexity of the business operation is a big challenge here. I think there's some other challenges though.

One is that within many companies, it is often the case that the people who are calculating the value of an investment, the return on the investment, they don't believe that a greening the supply chain investment or a sustainable development investment is on an equal par with traditional kinds of construction projects or other things that they're used to. So I think there is some need for further awareness building and conversation within global companies as to how they're actually defining return on investment.

Secondly, I think there's a very growing conversation within these very large companies in terms of what their sustainability objectives are versus what their procurement objectives are. These are very different cultures, very different groups of people within company. And I think what's starting to happen is that the procurement staff, both at corporate headquarters and in the field are starting to face many more pressures, whether that's on environmental issues, whether that's on human rights, labor standards.

I think they're looking for answers and I'm beginning to see a much more robust and comprehensive dialogue, even within companies, on terms of how they integrate the procurement and sustainability objectives. I also think that a set of obstacles deals with the factors that go beyond the company.

In many of the developing country markets where companies have business operations, you don't have government regulatory standards or capacities. You don't have sufficient technical knowledge amongst the stakeholder community, or even the government. And so I think that is actually, over time, becoming an increased burden for global companies because what will happen over time is that expectations will change on the part of communities. And they're going to have to make more direct investments and support in this capacity building so that there's clarity about what the rules are and that they're enforced and things of that nature.