Wal-Mart's Green Horizon: Coming to A Supplier Near You?
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 07.29.06
Fortune Magazine’s August 7, 2006 issue has an 8-page cover story titled “Wal-Mart Saves The Planet”. Even if you’ve read the many posts TreeHugger has had on Wal-Mart within the last year, this story offers some insights you won’t find elsewhere. We were surprised, for example, at the extent to which traditional environmental NGO’s influenced the company’s recent strategy. The key excerpt for us was this one: “The company is so big, so powerful, it could force an army of suppliers to clean up their acts too”. The full text is available on-line here , (but lacking all the nice color photos found in the paper version). Look below the fold for a few additional highlights.
• “Wal-Mart buys locally in two dozen states, striving to reduce "food miles" to save shipping costs and increase freshness”.
• In developing a green strategy, Wal-Mart began “pulling ideas from everywhere” in what was termed an “open source approach”.
• A management consulting firm, BluSkye, according to Fortune, spent nearly a year measuring Wal-Mart’s environmental footprint. “Fairly quickly, the environmentalists [consultants] spotted waste that Wal-Mart's legendary cost cutters had overlooked”. Oops.
• Wal-Mart “…stock has fallen by 30% since Scott took over as CEO in January 2000”.
• “The environmental campaign that Scott admits started out as a "defensive strategy" was, in his view, "turning out to be precisely the opposite." His people were feeling better about the company. They were saving their customers money”.
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I’m sure most of what Wal-Mart is doing is PR related, but who cares. As long as they are doing the right thing, I could care less of the motives. Wal-Mart has the power to facilitate change with so many other companies adopting their business model. Let’s hope they go a lot further, and you’ll start seeing similar changes in other industries.
==== author's response follows ====
Agree.
It's usefull to imagine what it would be like to be working at WM headaquarters: stock losing value for a few years; serious criticism coming from every direction; accusations ranging to the hostile. What a morale lowering experience that would be to endure every day.
I can not think of a single example of where pure PR saved a corporation from losing ground. The fact that WM's leaders have embraced Natural Capitalism ideas ought to be an encouragement to all of us, and clearly to the employees.
What I find most amazing is the "open source" approach. Few companies have the guts to face their critics and revise their strategies accordingly.
Ha! Even my own ethic and values would stop me from buying wal mart stocks. That's like owning haliburton stocks. They're evil.
Big Business is not the way forward--this is just another attempt by WalMart to Greenwash its image.
To effect real change, commerce has to be brought to the local level, and sustainable practices have to come form the heart, not from the PR Dept. For instance, in March, we opened a sustainable clothing boutique in Philadelphia. All our clothing is made from organic, sustainable or recycled materials without sweatshop labor. People have been receptive and customers have begun to question where their clothes come from. You can check out our mission, clothing or read the news articles about us at www.satyaboutique.com
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”
-M. Gandhi