Emerging and ongoing areas of business improvement have long been driven by a wide variety of business sustainability goals and objectives.  While sometimes falling under project headings of continuous improvement, business optimization or business synergies, companies across all industries have been searching for sustainable value.  Today this search has a new name and an expanded perspective beyond the internal working of the organization. 

• Wal-Mart unveils its Sustainability Index, defining business sustainability expectations and creating opportunity for its over 100,000 suppliers.

• IBM is now requiring its 28,000 suppliers to install management systems to gather data on their energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste and recycling.