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Brands who come to China, often they just care about price - so they actually drive the suppliers to cut corners on environmental standards to win a contract.

Though many corporations honor commitments to reduce dangerous pollution, some cut corners and cheat. The marketplace doesn't always have mechanisms to correct bad actors.

More and more companies are reaching out to their suppliers and contractors to work jointly on issues of sustainability, environmental responsibility, ethics, and compliance.

In an era of global value chains, worldwide sourcing and the never-ending search for new markets, we must be careful to avoid the proliferation of regional standards. A multilateral approach holds wider benefits for more actors.

Greening the globalised manufacturing and sourcing will be the single biggest help multinationals could make to the tough pollution control in China and other developing countries.

It is economically irrational to exclude large environmental costs from the balance sheets of the producers and the consumers. You are only kidding yourself if you export those costs on to society as a whole.

Countries are effectively paid deference in direct and indirect ways if they're huge oil suppliers.

When a company is not being guided by the products they make and what the customers need, but by how they can manipulate the system - get regulations on their competitors, or mandates on using their products, or eliminating foreign competition - it just lowers the overall standard of living and hurts the disadvantaged the most.

Engineers in the developed world should be arguing not for protectionism but for trade agreements that seek to establish rules that result in a real rise in living standards. This will ensure that outsourcing is a positive force in the developing nation's economy and not an exploitative one.

Developed countries and advanced developing countries must open their markets for products from the developing world, and support in developing their export and import capacity.