The highest level apparel industry company committing to 'sustainability' is Wal-Mart. In fact, Wal-Mart admits "over 92%" of what needs to be done is down the chain. It may be a 'top down' program, but it will only work from the 'bottom up', believes Mike Todaro.

How many links in the apparel supply chain are there? We count about 40 in our independent non-profit AAPNetwork. We are the industry's case study of what a chain can do together about sustainability and we've already started.

The irony of so many independent audits today is that a core of the industry 'gets it' about sustainability. From fibre, yarn and thread to fabrics, trim and garments, there is a massive momentum already in progress.

As a topic, sustainability defies standards, not to mention definitions. Cleaning up water isn't sustainability. It is what you should have been doing all along. It is the avoidance of a negative.

The list of 25 benefits Rocedes Apparel gives its 3,000 people in Managua? That's the addition of a positive, truly taking responsibility for society by solving problems workers agree they actually have.

That's why you can't keep score. Sustainability is about doing what's right, not pencil whipping a checklist. Inspection agencies, brands, retailers, unions, activists will never collaborate on inspections. Their career and revenue stream is continuous auditing.

The reason most factories need to be checked is the loss of direct relationships with their customers. Globalisation, outsourcing, consolidation, firings, computerisation, lack of transparency, loss of experience and a lack of strategic sourcing are contributing causes.

Factory direct sourcing is rare. Supply chains are a mystery. The big picture complexity of how one company's finished goods is the next one's raw materials is lost. Yet, for the few who get the big picture, there is really only one story.

The chapters of the story are supply chain, balanced sourcing, social responsibility, risk assessment, accountability and now sustainability - management skills that take years to learn. Few have them today on staff, much less individually...and it shows.

China 'took their shoes off, crossing the river barefoot, feeling each rock under their feet'. Learning by doing. Yet the US, the Americas and Europe originate many of the best industry practices in the world.

Early in March 2010 in El Salvador, I detailed an entire supply chain in and out - fibre, spandex, yarn, fabric, finishing, elastic, thread, patches, labels, trim, assembly, technology, logistics, brand and retail - sustainable end-to-end.

There will never be one master list of the most sustainable vendors and super-compliant factories. Lists went out with fax machines. That problem is solved now by our online network of 600 people who reach virtually every resource in the world, activated at a moment's notice.

Countries meet with themselves, industries in their silos. But our annual meeting 2-4 May in Miami will meet as a supply chain. It will be a standard setting series of snapshots of sustainability at its best - one big picture.

In the end, sustainability executives will need a bottoms up team of 'rocks under their feet' to execute top down sustainability. The chain they'll need in the end is the one we have right now.

Mike Todaro is managing director of the AAPNetwork, a non-profit supply chain network with members worldwide. Click here for more details on the AAPN annual meeting: Sustainability: Let's Get It Right.