We learn all this from the Wal-Mart Effect, written by Charles Fishman late last year before Wal-Mart Prez Lee Scott’s latest pronouncements that we have been so happy to promote at TreeHugger here and in John’s post today. The book tries to study the very opaque, inaccessible largest company in the world to see how it works, how it affects us whether we shop there or not, and how it is changing the economy of America and its suppliers all over the world. Although the book does not address the new initiatives that are receiving so much copy, it does lay out good reasons for us to question Wal-Mart’s ability to carry through with them.
]]> In looking for an example of the Wal-Mart Effect, we will concentrate on one product: salmon. What follows is a summary of the chapter.12 years ago there was no Atlantic salmon in Chile- logically since it’s on the Pacific. It is not found south of the equator and it would be like “finding penguins in the Rockies.” The Norwegians figured out how to farm them in the sixties, how to ship them in the eighties, and the Canadians and the Chileans copied it in the nineties.
In Chile, it revolutionized life in the south. Subsidence farmers became fish plant factory workers, Salmon became the second biggest export after copper, $1.5 billion in sales last year. In America, it changed our diet; salmon is now as common a meal as chicken or pork- consumption went from half a million pounds 15 years ago to over three times that now. The Chilean economy has changed because of it; our eating habits have changed because of it, and half of it is sold at Wal-Mart.
It is taken from the pens early in the morning and taken to the plant for filleting. It is then trucked to Santiago and put on a plane to Miami. In the major centers it is being sold within 48 hours of being taken out of the water; a day later it is in every Wal-Mart in America.
Wal-Mart has made $4.84/lb salmon accessible to everyone in America because Wal-Mart has one goal- to deliver Always Low Prices, Always. The culture is based on Sam Walton’s experiment 40 years ago to see what happens if you cut costs and cut prices to the bare margins of survival- the company is based on the solid country virtues of frugality, modesty and unpretentiousness. It delivers exactly what it promises. It does not come into a community and drive the competition out of business by predatory pricing that then goes up again when the competition is gone- it stays cheap. It is not evil, it is single-minded.
This is the root of Lee Scott’s problem in delivering on his promises. Long ago Wal-Mart reduced packaging to reduce cost. They developed pallet sized sales units in aisles to reduce space required and further reduce handling. Getting better trucks that use less fuel makes sense, so does building greener stores that reduce operating costs – that all fits within the Wal-Mart philosophy. It is efficient and frugal- Sam would have done that.
But when it comes to eliminating cheap salmon, paying decent wages and not beating the last cent out of suppliers, and not shifting manufacture offshore to the cheapest supplier, this cuts to the core of Wal-Mart- if it is not cheaper than the competition people will not shop there. The goal is still to deliver Always Low Prices, Always. Otherwise why bother?
Lee Scott is saying all the right things, but the stock is in the tank. Treehugger and Fortune may love him, but shoppers will want to know- “Where is the $ 4.84 salmon?”
There is a lot to learn in the Wal-Mart effect, it is well-written and could easily get bogged down in endless statistics, but rarely does. One just has no idea how big Wal-Mart is and how important it is to our economy, and how the Wal-Mart effect is misunderstood and under-rated. I was not fond of the last weepy chapter composed of interviews of people laid off in a sprinkler factory, (and who still shop at Wal-Mart because it is cheap) but the rest of the book was fascinating. We came away with the conclusion that Lee Scott and Wal-Mart have their hearts in the right place, but all of the green pronouncements in the world do not speak to their core customer, who is after always low prices, always.
You can read the chapter on salmon at Charles Fishman's site.
]]>Goodell divides his book into three sections, each corresponding to a stage in the "lifecycle" of coal production and consumption: the first deals with mining, the second with burning the black rocks in power plants, and the third with the effects of emissions. Goodell's choice to look at the full picture, from mine to power plant to disposing of wastes, as well as the exhaustive research he puts into each section, makes this book a bit overwhelming -- in one sense, it mirrors recent books like James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency. Goodell's take on the future is certainly much less dramatic than Kunstler's, but he makes it clear that we're on the threshold of big changes in how we produce energy in this country. The coal industry's mantra has been "We'll figure out the problems later when we've made technological advances to deal with them," but Goodell makes clear that 1) some of the most promising technological advances are ready for commercial use, but the utility companies aren't willing to spend the necessary money on them, and 2) we're simply no longer in a position to put off facing the music on climate change and other environmental problems.
While looking at the big picture, Goodell never forgets that it's individuals who pay some of the most horrific prices for our dependence on the cheap electricity provided by coal. We read stories about two of the miners rescued from the Quecreek, Pennsylvania mine disaster in 2002, a woman who's family homestead has been devastated by the new floods produced by mountain top removal in the Appalachians, and a man in China's poorest province who's created his own methane digester to produce usable gas from his farm animals' poop. The facts and statistics in this book are fascinating, but it's the stories of individuals dealing with the past and present of Big Coal that really keep a reader turning pages.
This is an important book, especially as coal is experiencing a renaissance in the US. Goodell's no pie-in-the-sky idealist: he recognizes we will be burning coal for the foreseeable future. At the same time, he makes it amply clear that if we choose to keep burning it as we always have, the costs we'll face shortly down the road will dwarf the economic problems that US politicians and their industrial sugar-daddies love to tout as a reason why we can't regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Publisher Houghton-Mifflin released the book yesterday, June 8, and it should be a quick seller.
]]>In Chapter One, Cameron outlines the founding of Architecture for Humanity, when he was a CAD monkey in a big New York firm. It started as a response to the conflict in Kosovo, in four square feet of his cubicle. He ran a competition for refugee housing and 220 architects responded, and he learned that there were lots of CAD monkeys who wanted to make a difference. By 2003 his footprint is 203 square feet and they are running competitions for Africa and getting 1400 entries. Then the disasters came thick and fast- Bam. Tsunami. Pakistan. New Orleans. The footprint is up to 1000 SF and the goals have evolved, to trying to create "an open-source network of innovative solutions".
Chapter two, by co-founder and partner Kate Stohr, covers the one hundred year history of humanitarian housing since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, taking in all the failures and successes of architects around the world. It is a depressing litany of missed opportunities and great ideas gone awry, but uplifted by remarkable quotes, our favourite being Samuel Mockbee's: “Everybody wants the same thing, rich or poor...not only a warm, dry room , but a shelter for the soul.”
The rest of the book shows examples, many which we have covered in TreeHugger. They demonstrate ingenuity and cleverness about doing more with less, and efficiently living with less, and should be looked at as models for us all, for we keep thinking that “It can't happen here” but as we have learned from San Francisco and New Orleans, it can and it will. Design Like You Give a Damn and when you are thinking about donations, think about Architecture for Humanity I do.
]]>Tim Flannery's book is full of stories like this; it is comprehensible and easy to understand. The Great Barrier Reef will become the Great Stumpy Reef as it bleaches under higher temperatures; Mountains become leveled as biodiversity declines. One can relate to every example- It is all dealt out in a way that you leave knowing so much more than you did when you started yet one is not ready to stick their head in the oven.
]]> It is not a negative book, it lays out the problem and many of the proposed solutions but does not write us off. For us the most surprising line in the book was a single statistic- 55% of energy consumed in the United States goes for domestic heating and cooling. This is nuts, and can be dealt with using current technology. It also points out the misdirection of energy and effort- buliding a hydrogen economy makes no sense when 30% of domestic energy use is going for making hot water, which is easy and cheap to replace with solar. He is sensible and makes one focus on priorities. Flannery scares you to death but does not lose hope; We are impressed and inspired.Read also Andrew Nikiforuk's review for the Globe and Mail. He knows how to write.