Walmart could atleast get rid of the plastic bags! I don't think they really care about the environment. -

I have sworn off Wal-Mart for life. Anyone else?? I will never shop there.

I know loads and loads of people keep going for the low, low prices, but you'd think they would be losing popularity by now since a lot of people know about how bad Wal-Mart is for our society.

How is there seemingly endless demand for more and more stores?!?!

Wal-mart, like all large corporations, is all about making money. If, and only if, doing something good for the environment helps its bottom line, Wal-mart will do it. Otherwise, it won't. It saves the company money to reduce the amount of fuel it consumes, so it strives to make its trucks more fuel efficient. It doesn't save it money to pay living wages, provide affordable health insurance to employees, or produce its products in a country that has strong environmental and labor laws, so it doesn't.

Taking a few positive environmental steps (when it is beneficial to the company) while simultaneously causing great environmental devastation does not constitute a green business model.

Here is a recent example that shows just how shallow the company's commitment is to being green: Wal-mart is now trying to expand its operations into India. India is a vast land of small, independent bizarres and markets. Every street is a market. Each day, hawkers bring locally grown organic vegetables to peoples' doorsteps in carts that use no fossil fuel and generate no emissions. They also sell slippers, saris, plastic toys, children's clothes and a host of other consumer goods. This is an integral part of the Indian culture and provides employment to over 100 million people. Wal-mart is trying to put all of these people out of business and replace them with a first world energy intensive retail model. This will increase the carbon emissions from India's retail sector exponentially and destroy the livelihoods of tens of millions of people. Does this sound like a green company to you?

If they started using CFL bulbs in hell in order to free up more energy to do evil, would that make Satan an environmentalist? Would you shop there?

Who actually shops at WalMart?!?!

In the past when I use to go to Walmart, I noticed common themes in each store's consumer base - (regardless of location)

Many Latino's shop at walmart for the "low prices".
Many lower income families shop at Walmart for "low cost" foods.
Many senior citizen shop at Walmart to do their shopping and getting their med's at the "same place and time".
Many over consumers shop at Walmart for the "bulk items and cheap" goods.
Many small towns in America only have Walmart as their main goods provider

So whilst I do not agree with the Walmart ethics. I have found that majority of people really do not care about a companies ethics. Conumsers care more about their ability to over consum at lower rates.

Majority of people do not demand more ethics. Hence Walmart will still expand.

I too have sworn off Wal-Mart. I doesn't represent me as a consumer, or an American.
Cheers to the little guys~

If your shopping at Price Chopper, Hannaford, K-Mart, Agway or Tractor Supply Company, then your no more virtuous then those who shop at Walmart.

There are no, and have not been local stores, that sell the kind of products that Walmart has sold in the greater Albany, NY-area in the past thirty years. Big box stores like Ames, K-Mart, Woolsworths and Sears killed those stores decades ago.

Walmart just reflects a bigger and better version of K-Mart. They sell what K-Mart use to sell at a higher price. K-Mart isn't some wonderful local store either.

My hat's off to Walmart for their work greening up their stores. While they will never be a sustainable industry in the long-run, their practices are better then their competitors like K-Mart and Sears.

I agree with many of those that have commented that Wal-Mart is no better than any other big box store. And yes, as I have said many times any improvement is some improvement.

With that said, here in Green Bay, Wisconsin Wal-mart has single-handidly caused a land use nightmare. First, Brown County, which is where Green Bay is located, has just over 230,000 people in it. Most live in the Green Bay Metro area. To serve this population, Wal-Mart has put up three stores which are within about a 5 mile radius of each other. To me that is more than enough. But wait, it gets better...Wal-Mart has plans to put in at least 2 more stores if not 3. And even better, one of those stores is located less than 1 mile from one of their existing stores. And even better yet, all of those stores are located on the very fringes of the metro area, which only contributes to the major sprawl issue that we already have here. There is no Wal-Mart downtown where the high levels of poverty exist. If Wal-Mart must exist, shouldn't they be moving into areas where the people that need their "low prices" the most? Instead, they move into suburbia where people who don't have cars can't get to them because the bus system here is more than imperfect.

I would like to say that this is probably an isolated incident, but I am hard pressed to believe that. If Wal-Mart really wants to go green, maybe the should start by looking at their own development policies!

http://greenmadesimple.blogspot.com