More than seven years ago (that has to be the blogosphere equivalent of an eternity, right?), in a post entitled, Is China Going Green? we wrote admiringly about a big company that had one high environmental standard for the entire world:

We are aware of a large Fortune 500 retail company that is opening units in China that meet or exceed the toughest United States environmental laws.  I estimate this company’s environmental sensitivity will cost them at least an additional $25,000 per retail unit, yet I am firmly convinced this company is doing the right thing.  This company’s actions make sense because the odds are good that China’s environmental laws and enforcement will get tougher over time, and building environmentally sound units now will almost certainly cost less than having to retrofit existing units a few years from now.  On top of this, people often get very emotional about the environment and I can see Chinese citizens getting very angry with a foreign company whose units in China are less environmentally sound than their units in the United States or elsewhere.  This is obviously even more likely to be the case if there were to be some sort of environmental disaster.

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