wal-mart leads global green initiative
Historically, Wal-Mart hasn’t exactly been the poster child for social responsibility, but that may soon change. As we reported last week, Wal-Mart announced plans to provide sustainability labels for every single product in their stores. The company is pioneering a “sustainability index,” which weighs several environmental and social factors, including carbon footprint, packaging, water use, waste, and life cycle of a product. The big box retailer will work with NGOs, universities, scholars, suppliers, and government agencies to develop a global database that measures the complete life cycle of a product and passes that information on to the consumer in a standardized, easy-to-read label.
Needless to say, the initiative is an enormous undertaking, but one that could set a new standard for accountability. Ironically, Wal-Mart’s complete omnipresence—which has been so heavily criticized in the past—may be the very factor that makes this program a success. Wal-Mart’s long-term plan is for other major retailers to adopt the index. The method will evolve into a universal measure to evaluate the sustainability of any given product. Wal-Mart may very well be the only chain large enough to pull it off.
Wal-Mart has proposed a five-year timeline for executing this project, outlining three key steps: First, they’ll send out a survey to 10,000 retailers to evaluate the company’s own sustainability. The second phase will be actually building the database. And although Wal-Mart will initially foot the bill for this project, they’re hoping to partner with major technology companies to execute the database portion. The final phase will be delivering information to consumers.
For a complete report on Wal-Mart’s plans, read through their fact sheets and watch videos of last week’s sustainability summit.
What do you think of the new initative? If you’re not a Wal-Mart shopper now, would this get you into the store?
