Sustainability can involve a global effort to calculate carbon emissions across the entire supply chain. Or it can mean the changing of a few light bulbs.

Retail sales were lagging long before the government shutdown, but the hit that the economy took from the closure didn't help things at all. Now, the National Retail Federation, the industry's top trade group, said that shoppers this year planned to reduce spending on presents and holiday preparations.

Four times in the last five years, the Pentagon's inspector general has found that Boeing Co. collected excessive or unjustified payments on U.S. defense contracts. In the latest of four audits since 2008, the watchdog office said the Chicago company charged the Army for new helicopter parts while installing used ones.

In a post-Rana Plaza world, one can only wonder how best to gauge the ethics and worker safety behind our garment-manufacturing industry. The Goliath that the fashion industry has become begs the question whether it's even possible to ensure suppliers do the right thing.