Sustainability Hits a Wal

Wal-Mart releases its first "sustainability report"

Posted at 9:05 AM on 16 Nov 2007

Hugemongous retailer Wal-Mart released its first "sustainability report" yesterday after having delayed its release several times. In it, the company touts its recent efforts to green its operations, while also admitting it has a long way to go. "We make no claims of being a green company," said company CEO H. Lee Scott. No argument there. But Wal-Mart said it met its goal of selling 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs since last November and claimed to have increased the energy efficiency of its buildings and its truck fleet by 15 percent since 2005. The company has also set a goal to reduce the solid waste from its U.S. stores 25 percent by next year. But mostly, the report found there's not much wrong with business as usual. "We have found that there is no conflict between our business model of everyday low costs and everyday low prices and being a more sustainable business," Scott said in the report. Critics countered that if "sustainability" can be used to describe Wal-Mart's business model, the word is meaningless anyway.

sources: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, Financial Times
see also, in Grist: An interview with Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott

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Comments: (3 comments)

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Great

I think these are great measures of progress on the behalf of Walmart. When you make little changes at this scale, they can have a big impact on society as a whole.

As for the unsustainably of the Walmart model, there is no question on that. But right now, that's how much of our society is based around, and Walmart makes can make positive choices.

If not Walmart then who -- Agway, K-Mart, Sears, Target, Tractor Supply Co ?

Compared to many smaller companies and institutions, Walmart has the ability to do things with a lower-per-sale footprint, by their sheer size and efficiency. Simply said, Walmart can move product with less waste or energy consumed then similar businesses that are smaller.

by nycowboy at 12:18 PM on 16 Nov 2007

Wal-Mart recycling in Oakland

I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart, but I thought you might be interested to see a little bit of Wal-Mart's recycling efforts in Oakland. A few weeks ago, I toured the facility that has the contract to process Wal-Mart's recycling. Wal-Mart bundles cardboard, plastic sheeting, and plastic hangers into "sandwich" bales before sending them to the facility. There are some photos in the article on my blog:

http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/2007/11/recycling-part-4-v ...

I do wonder why they are recycling plastic hangers instead of reusing them. Surely, they can't all be broken, can they? If if they are, there must be a better type of hanger they could be using in the first place.

Beth Terry http://www.fakeplasticfish.com

by Beth Terry at 5:03 PM on 16 Nov 2007

I get the impression that ...

Wal-Mart may be successfully able to reduce the use of human employees in their operation, but aren't they substituting energy use in order to obtain those reductions?

And the typical Wal-Mart has the massive parking lot due to the extensive automobile use required to drive multiple miles to get to their stores. I'm not sure there is any semblance of sustainablity in that model; how will they do with $4, $5 or $6 per gallon gasoline?.

tom

by waterpowered at 5:14 PM on 16 Nov 2007

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