I couldn't make much sense of how Wal-Mart defines sustainability other than the "20 percent energy increase" and compliance with local environmental and business laws.

"A company that cheats on age of labor, dumps chemicals in rivers, or does not pay taxes will ultimately cheat on the quality of products ... that's the same as cheating on customers and we will not tolerate that at Wal-Mart," as Andrew Winston quoted Lee Scott.

If these statements can be enforced, China and its people will be the biggest beneficiary. But the most fundamental question is how factories can get the money for an operational overhaul, if Wal-Mart's focus remains on the price.

As Winston wrote:

Wal-Mart has to change the internal culture - as one of the suppliers told me, "They sound serious, but with buyers it's still price, price, price." Lee Scott did address the associates directly during his talk and reinforced the message, but until buyers are paid or promoted differently, it's just talk.

Ask Chinese toy maker Bo Lin, who was featured in an investigative story from the Chinese newspaper 21 Century Economic Report.

"Back then, we took such pride in being a Wal-Mart supplier," he said. But being a bottom tier supplier, he struggled for years. "From 2005 through the end of 2007, [the] U.S. dollar depreciated 17 percent, raw material prices soared 80-200 percent, but Wal-Mart didn't pay me a penny more." Bo Lin wisely cut Wal-Mart orders from 30 percent of his business to 3 percent. "Otherwise, I'd have gone out of business for sure, like my friends who relied too much on Wal-Mart orders."

[Till tomorrow.]