We've done some good stuff on Wal-Mart's greening, but Marc Gunther's cover story in Fortune this week pulls it all together better than any single story I've seen, and advances it in some interesting ways.
Particularly in reference to our ongoing debate over morality, listen to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott:
To me, there can't be anything good about putting all these chemicals in the air. There can't be anything good about the smog you see in cities. There can't be anything good about putting chemicals in these rivers in Third World countries so that somebody can buy an item for less money in a developed country. Those things are just inherently wrong, whether you are an environmentalist or not.
He later says:
I had an intellectual interest when we started. I have a passion today.
What moved him from intellectual interest to passion? Morality.
I hadn't realized how big a role a Walton played in the story. This line sounds like the beginning of a joke:
[Sam Walton's son] Rob Walton, his son Ben, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, and conservationist Peter Seligmann were scuba-diving off Coco Island, a lush, uninhabited Costa Rican national park populated by manta rays, dolphins, and sharks.
A chain led from Walton to Scott.
In a drab Bentonville conference room, Scott, Rob Walton, Seligmann and Glenn Prickett of Conservation International, and a friend of Seligmann's named Jib Ellison, a river-rafting guide turned management consultant, convened a pivotal meeting in June 2004.
Scott started the company researching and talking to some smart people.
"Think about it," Scott said in his big speech to employees last fall. "If we throw it away, we had to buy it first. So we pay twice - once to get it, once to have it taken away. What if we reverse that? What if our suppliers send us less, and everything they send us has value as a recycled product? No waste, and we get paid instead."
That was talk any Wal-Mart executive could understand, even if few knew it came straight from the pages of Natural Capitalism, an influential book by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins that lays out a blueprint for a new green economy in which nothing goes to waste.
Not coincidentally, Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute were also hired as consultants by Wal-Mart to study a radical revamp of its trucking fleet.
Scott also insured that the learning would be distributed and ongoing.
Wal-Mart was pulling ideas from everywhere -- consultants, NGOs, suppliers, and eco-friendly competitors such as Patagonia and Whole Foods. This open-source approach worked so well that the company decided to form "sustainable value networks" made up of Wal-Mart executives, suppliers, environmental groups, and regulators; they would meet every few months to share ideas, set goals, and monitor progress.
Today there are 14 networks, each with a focus: facilities, internal operations, logistics, alternative fuels, packaging, chemicals, food and agriculture, electronics, textiles, forest products, jewelry, seafood, climate change, and China.
Ironically, the company's monopsony power -- rightly regarded as dangerous by economists -- may end up being its most powerful lever for change. Genuinely substantive things are happening.
In February, Wal-Mart announced that over the next three to five years it would purchase all its wild-caught seafood from fisheries that, like Alaska's salmon fishery, have been certified as sustainable by an independent nonprofit called the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). [More on the company's new fish policy here.]
The company's also becoming a huge purchaser of organic cotton, not to mention organic foods:
Wal-Mart is also increasing the amount of organic food it sells, but some even find fault with this, assuming that it buys only from massive corporate organic farms. Not true. Wal-Mart buys locally in two dozen states, striving to reduce "food miles" to save shipping costs and increase freshness.
This seems to make good on what Amanda reported here:
The produce director is moving toward more local farm purchases in order to save money on truck fuel costs and refrigeration. Moving away from selling monoculture produce at all stores to more diversity in produce based on region ... Said the produce director, "Our whole focus is: How can we reduce food miles?" He predicts a big resurgence of locally produced farm products in coming decades (not necessarily family farms, but locally produced nevertheless).
As Gunther appropriately stresses, much of the value-add for Wal-Mart moving this direction is the educational aspect:
This is why Wal-Mart's eco-initiative is potentially more world-changing than, say, GE's. GE sells fuel-efficient aircraft engines and billion-dollar power plants to a few customers. Wal-Mart sells organic cotton, laundry soap, and light bulbs to millions. When shoppers see a display promoting "the bulb that pays for itself, again and again and again," they'll be reminded of their own environmental impact.
Not only does this educate folks, but it has a politically transformative effect.
"The potential here is to democratize the whole sustainability idea--not make it something that just the elites on the coasts do but something that small-town and middle America also embrace," says CI's Glenn Prickett. "It's a Nixon-to-China moment."
I'm officially over the lefty orthodox position of principled hatred for Wal-Mart. We're talking about enormous power being marshaled here, an economy equal to the GDPs of small countries. These are not all the changes we'd like to see. We'd like to see sprawl addressed. We'd like to see C2C certified products. We'd like to see much more enlightened labor relations.
But these are positive changes, and positive changes are what we want for every entity: individual, civic, state, or corporate. To be moving in the right direction. That's the thing.
The ideal outcome here is that Wal-Mart is so affected by the shower of public acclaim and business it receives in response to these green initiatives that it doubles and redoubles its efforts toward sustainability. Like this:
The environmental campaign that Scott admits started out as a "defensive strategy" was, in his view, "turning out to be precisely the opposite."
Positive reinforcement is not moral compromise.
Green-biz pioneer Ray Anderson says sustainability literally pays for itself
Umbra’s top ten Climate Week moments
Umbra’s top ten Climate Week moments
Comments
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kmp Posted 3:29 am
27 Jul 2006
There can't be anything good about putting chemicals in these rivers in Third World countries so that somebody can buy an item for less money in a developed country. Those things are just inherently wrong, whether you are an environmentalist or not.
And yet, in today's NYT:
After months of fevered lobbying and bitter debate, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance yesterday requiring "big box" stores, like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2010, along with at least $3 an hour worth of benefits.
WalMart's response:
"It's sad -- this puts politics ahead of working men and women," John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said in a telephone interview. "It means that Chicago is closed to business."
Wal-Mart will still open its nearly completed branch on Chicago's West Side in September -- the company's first store in the city -- but any future plans "will likely change," Mr. Simley said.
It just doesn't seem to make sense, does it? On the one hand, they are determined to save the environment, and seem to be implementing plans to not only do so, but force their suppliers to do so. On the other hand, by all reports, they treat their employees like indentured servants.
It doesn't quite add up.
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smp Posted 5:33 am
27 Jul 2006
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Chris Schults Posted 5:39 am
27 Jul 2006
To me, there can't be anything good about putting all these chemicals in the air. There can't be anything good about the smog you see in cities. There can't be anything good about putting chemicals in these rivers in Third World countries so that somebody can buy an item for less money in a developed country. Those things are just inherently wrong, whether you are an environmentalist or not.
It sounds like the rationale has moved beyond financial reasons (if you are to believe the above quote is sincere).
Look out! It's a media shower!
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:49 am
27 Jul 2006
Let us take a nuanced position, shall we? It's not the millenium but it is an improvment. This is the way social progress inevitably happens - awkwardly and inconsistently. Two steps forward and one step back.
Joel Makower has a related piece on Michael Shuman (author of the article quoted by David) at WorldChanging: Can 'Small-Mart' Replace Wal-Mart?.
Love it or hate it, a world without ...Wal-Mart would be a different place. But what would replace it?
Small-Mart, perhaps?
That, at least, is the foundation of Michael Shuman's new book, The Small-Mart Revolution. "Small-Mart" refers to locally owned businesses that are, in aggregate, more reliable generators of good jobs, economic growth, tax dollars, community wealth, charitable contributions, social stability, and political participation, according to Shuman.
His very readable and entertaining book makes clear that this "revolution" is about "far more than fighting chain stores." In fact, he says, it is notable as much for what it stands for than what it is against. Shuman is for profit-making businesses, even big ones (under certain circumstances). He is for jobs and, presumably, some reasonable level of consumption. In fact, the only thing for which he is demonstrably against is "the vast web of laws and public policies that directly disadvantage small and local businesses" in favor of large, global ones. Oh, and the global financiers that facilitate this: It's the capital markets, stupid.
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kmp Posted 5:49 am
27 Jul 2006
I would not be surprised, nor aghast, if WalMart were undertaking it's latest green moves solely in an effort to protect the bottom line. I wish that other companies would see that it is not only good for the planet, but good for the pocketbook.
However, Scott's quote reads like that of a converted prophet - and I wonder whether he is 1) lying, or 2) hasn't yet discovered what is "inherently wrong" about inadequate wages, inadequate health care, discrimination, etc.
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Ammonite Posted 2:30 am
28 Jul 2006
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money."
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David Roberts Posted 2:54 am
28 Jul 2006
www.grist.org
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kmp Posted 3:28 am
28 Jul 2006
Honestly, I think the news of WalMart's green initiatives is very encouraging and it could end up having huge impact. My point above is that I feel only guardedly optimistic when I consider that Scott's statements seem to point to a moral reasoning (in addition to bottom line) for deciding to make such sweeping changes. It just seems suspicious in light of other "moral" failings that the company has no plans to address.
Strangely enough, if profit were the only driver discussed (i.e. Scott announces that they have had consultants to a rigorous review and the following efficiency measures will save $XX million per year) I would be more convinced of the eventual follow through. And perhaps profit is the main driver, and Scott's moral statements are just greenwashing.
Either way, it won't matter to me as long as WalMart actually carries through with their plans. If they can make more money doing it, so much the better.
Kaela
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amazingdrx Posted 5:43 am
28 Jul 2006
It even imports illegal aliens to do contract cleaning in its stores. Jobs americans would do if wages and working conditions were legal.
It is way past time to quit coddling law breaking corporations. Use anti-trust laws to bust 'em up and tax and labor laws to confiscate assets.
Or do corporate "citizens" have special rights?
It seems the baby bells once split up under anti-trust laws have consolidated again. The law ought to come down on these rogue operators like a ton of bricks.
Industry self-regulation is no regulation. The corporatist raygun revolution needs to end.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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ffletcher Posted 5:55 am
28 Jul 2006
Wal Mart has a responsibility to it sharesholders that it does not have the luxury of ignoring without action from its it shareholders. I doubt that I could go out and sell stock, build up a profitable company, issue more stock, and then take the money and build churches in China.
The two points above are aligned, it is good business to support environmental standards and it is Wal Mart's responsibility to build shareholder wealth according to its corporate By-Laws. Wal Mart is behaving as many business should perform. We want companies to practice do this. This is why we encourage the public to favor such businesses, Wal Mart is doing the that which is in their best interests and it happens to be aligned with ours is not a coincidence. It is how the public message has been made.
Again we want companies to favor good environmental practices. We want customers to do business with companies who practice the best environmental results.
Wal Mart has neither heart nor soul
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elroisees Posted 12:36 pm
29 Jul 2006
On the whole, a pretty good customer service response I think! Now we'll see if they put in that rack. For the bags, I'm bringing my own canvas bags. We'll see how that goes.
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mulang Posted 4:02 am
30 Jul 2006
If we question whether Scott has truly found green religion (which I think we should), we ought to expand our analysis of their motives beyond a) cost-savings or b) generic 'greenwashing'. Is it possible these environmental policies are also designed specifically to split the opposition? I'm sure Walmart would like nothing better than to be able to peel away the 'green collar' contingent (environmentalist, generally white-collar folk, such as most of the people in on this blog, I'm guessing) from the blue collar labor folks whose demands have sofar gone unmet by Walmart. Divide and conquer! Walmart would have effectively split the solid wall of progressive opposition it has so far faced.
My point here is that we shouldn't necessarily let our verdict on Walmart hinge entirely on that "are they green enough?" question, and remember class and our positions of priviliage and the importance of political solidarity.
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vpcw7 Posted 10:34 pm
30 Jul 2006
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bookerly Posted 2:29 am
31 Jul 2006
We should applaud any steps they take in green directions. This does not mean that we cannot have other criticisms of them. These can be specific, such as labor issues and size. Or general, such as "I don't like capitalism".
However, we should applaud Wal-mart when it does good. If all corporations adopted green standards, then we would be a long way towards solving the Global Warming problem that is LOOMING!
And we should applaud them.
Afterwards (or during (smile) for those of us able to hold two or more contradictory positions at the same time), we continue our struggles around whatever other issues we have.
But it is dishonest to criticize a practise, then applaud when that criticism is answered.
Imagine taking a test, getting a failing score, studying hard, getting 100 on the next one, then you are told that it is not enough, your 100 doesn't count.
Dear FFletcher, there are churches in China, they are just forbidden to get involved in politics. Apparently for some, believing in God and Jesus, praying, reading the Bible and trying to follow it aren't enough. Sigh.
I really don't care why people work to stop global warming (just as i don't care why they are vegetarians (grin)). I am happy if they do.
patrick
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