Don't rely on the industrie to create the change we need! This is just another example.

People will believe anything if they want it bad enough. It is good that they want to - it is bad that they trust so blindly. Green sells well even if it is not green. Is it a problem in the USA that so many people believe so easily what they are told without any skepticism.

Tobacco companies supporting health initiatives - Oil companies funding alternative energies - Walmart supporting the environment.

Yeah right.

Karsten PolluteLessDotCom

I agree with the above comments. The idea that any mega-corporation, most especially Wal-Mart, is even "green" (to say nothing of actually sustainable), should be immediately scoffed at.

Furthermore, it is really popular to believe right now that we can buy our way out of global warming. Companies want us to believe that just by consuming differently, and not less, that we are still being environmental.

Baloney.

An essential part of being an evironmentally conscious person is LIVING SIMPLY and consuming  conscientiously.

That isn't a very profitable idea for most corporations, though.

By the way does Wal-Mart still use sweat-shop labor or would ending that practice, hurt profit as well?

This may not be news to others, but this realization was eye-opening to me:

North Americans feel guilty about what they do to the environment. We know what is going on and we feel bad that we do not stop.

So, the popular solution to the problem is not to change but instead to believe that your behavior is changed and you do not have to feel guilty anymore. Initiatives by Walmart (and other companies to follow I am certain) help with removing that guilty feeling while allowing us to continue shopping, consuming, buying the latest gadgets, etc. The solution to the inconvenient truth is not so inconvenient after all.

What a beautiful self-initiated twist of one's own mind!

I have said it before but will say it again: If we believe what we want to believe nothing will change. I fear that is what many of us do not want to hear because it includes ANY spiritual or moral  believes. Those may be pleasant to the individual, but have a detrimental effect on the sustainability movement. The changes that need to occur are rather inconvenient and hard to accept as necessary. It is hard to convince anyone to commit to those changes if you yourself believe in comforting supernatural concepts without reason or evidence. You believe in a "spirit" - they believe in Walmart.

Educating our children and those they admire, good science, observable evidence, and reason are the only way out.

Karsten PolluteLessDotCom

Who cares if the mayor rides an electric bike (like BioD!), if he does it near WalMart it's evil.

...for a company that is responsible for how much carbon emissions over the years?

Herein lies the ethical rub: when a company takes 100 steps back and 20 steps forward, should we applaud them like they're 20 steps ahead, or critique them like they're still 80 steps back?

i think that we are missing a great opportunity to actually make a difference in sustainability with WalMart.  WM has millions of shoppers each day who for the most part could care less about environmental causes.  Rather than rail about the evilness of WM and condemn their shoppers as ignorant hicks (they are not), why don't we support them and work with them to reach a gigantic segment of the population that we could never work with otherwise?  This is a huge opportunity and a great way to make a real difference rather than just talk and talk and whine and whine.  No matter what we do, WM is here to stay and they are going to grow and grow.  Who cares why they go sustainable, let us just get on board with them and help them to get there and make a real difference.

I think your writer needs to visit Fayetteville - my hometown - before attributing our "greenness" to Wal-Mart.
First, Wal-Mart is headquartered in Bentonville, about 30 mins. north of here. And while I do applaud the steps Wal-Mart has taken to get their eco-stuff together, they still have a long way to go. And if you go to Bentonville and Rogers, where most Wal-Mart corporate staff and vendors live, you'll see the most disgusting examples of sprawl - with miles and miles of McMansions chewing up what used to be farmlands and forests.
Second, Fayetteville has been a lot greener than most other cities in our state and region for a long time - not that we're perfect. But if you're going to attribute that to anything, it would be the presence of the University of Arkansas and the intellectual & cultural diversity it hosts.
And as for Dan Coody - he's no environmentalist. He allowed Kohl's (and later, lots of other developers) to totally ignore our limited tree ordinance, and has basically been a lapdog to all developers. The progressives in Fayetteville are working hard to get rid of him.