The 215,000 sq. ft. facility will serve as the regional location offering remanufactured components such as mining truck engines, transmissions, final drives, and torque converters. It is expected to be fully operational by 2010.

"Compared to manufacturing new components, remanufacturing requires less energy, less water and fewer raw materials," says Doug Oberhelman, Caterpillar's group president. "The facility in Singapore will support our mining customers in the region by offering a sustainable solution, enabling those customers to provide for the future energy needs of the developing world."

The move may also help Caterpillar help minimize transport costs - a recent New York Times article noted that many companies are regionalizing supply chains to save on fuel.

The new packaging for HP's Pavilion dv6929, made from 100% recycled materials, replaces the traditional box with a fabric bag. The new design takes less space to ship and creates less waste for consumers to dispose of, according to HP.

The innovative packaging design has won Wal-Mart's Home Entertainment Design Challenge, which was open to all suppliers of consumer electronics products. Three criteria were used to evaluate submissions:

1. Great design that attracts consumers.
2. Product innovation that reduces the environmental impact for its product category.
3. Packaging design that facilitates reuse and recycling, reduces waste, and reduces or eliminates the use of toxic materials.

The challenge is part of Wal-Mart's aggressive approach to work with suppliers in providing more environmentally friendly products. The company has implemented a scorecard system to rate suppliers on their progress toward developing sustainable packaging.

The HP Pavilion dv6929 is available in Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs stores across the country. Consumers who purchase the computer can also take advantage of free recycling of their old PC.

"A side effect of globalization has been for some businesses to shift operations to locations with weaker environmental protection," the report notes. "These lower standards have resulted in costly product recalls of contaminated goods, damage to workers' health, and pollution of public drinking water of electrical waste."

Companies need to be fully aware and in control of operations throughout the supply chain, the report continues, in part because of reputational risk but also because local standards are expected to rise sharply as the effects of climate change become more evident.

"If a business does not apply to the highest standards, it will store up problems, requiring severe and painful short-term cuts in future," the report concludes.

For many companies, rising fuel costs have already forced them to rethink their traditional supply chain models, siting factories closer to the end markets where their products will be sold.

Some other key findings of the report include:

• 71% of respondents see reputation and brand as the areas where sustainability issues will provide opportunity.
• 63% see green supply chains as a path toward revenue growth by selling surplus efficiency allowances under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
• Despite widespread recognition of sustainability as a significant opportunity and threat, only 12% of respondents rated it among their top three supply chain priorities.

To download the complete report, click here (PDF).

While the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) warned it would crack down on firms making unsubstantiated green claims, Amanda Bodger of Mallesons Stephen Jacques says that the ACCC's poorly defined laws make it hard for marketers to know what they can and can’t say.

According to Bodger, the ACCC plans to charge high-profile companies with greenwashing over the next few months in an attempt to build awareness of the consequences of making false or misleading claims.

The problem, Bodger says, is that companies may not know they're misleading consumers.

"It is certainly a gray area," says Bodger. "The ACCC had said protecting the environment was not its mandate, but it has increased its focus on the area in the past eight months."

Bodger claims confusion between advertisers and regulators may only get worse with an increasing number of representative bodies, such as the Australian Association of National Advertisers, introducing self-regulatory guidelines. Moreover, governing bodies such as America’s FTC could contribute to the uncertainty when undergoing overhauls of their own rules.

Marketers all over the world are being forced to sharpen their messages. Complaints to Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority skyrocketed last year as a result of consumers’ high levels of awareness of environmental messages [coupled with] their confusion about what terms mean.

An American study released earlier this year exposed the growing gap between what companies say about their green products and what consumers actually hear - potentially leading to further marketing complaints.

Until a consensus can be reached on guidelines for green marketing, companies "must explain what they mean," says Bodger. "The claims must be accurate, the claims must be substantiated and claims about the future must be made on reasonable grounds."