Walmart’s sustainable policy - big company, big impact

Do you shop at Wal-Mart? I’m not a big fan but I have been to Wal-Mart numerous times when we used to live in Kingston, Ontario. It’s a typical big box store similar to the Canadian Superstore without veggies (although the new Walmart Super Centres have veggies), Zellers with less clothing, Home Depot with less building material. Really, it sells everything, and it sells for cheaper. Despite all the negative news (like the Walrmart movie) relating to Wal-Mart in basically every aspect, I have to admit that a super large company like Wal-Mart, when it decides to catch the sustainable fad, is really effective. They call it “Sustainable 360“.

Some quick stats:

Every week 176 million customers shop our stores in 16 countries around this world;
over 7,800 Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club; and
employ more than 2 million associates.

Not hard to see why when they implement a policy, the impact is quite significant! This week I will go through their sustainable newsletters, sustainable fact sheets, and research some news about their carbon footprint… stay tuned.

some quick food for thoughts with their sustainable measures:

In 2008, Wal-Mart was able to reach its goal to improve the efficiency of its fleet by 25 percent by loading trucks more efficiently, working with suppliers to reduce packaging, creating better driving routes that reduce miles and adding fuel-saving technologies to the truck.
- In a single year, this change could eliminate approximately 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, reduce the use of 10 million gallons of diesel fuel and save the company an estimated $25 million per year.
In May 2008, Wal-Mart reached its goal to sell only concentrated liquid laundry detergent in all of its U.S. stores and Sam’s Club locations. President and CEO Lee Scott made this commitment at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative.
- it is expected to save, over a three-year period, more than 400 million gallons of water, more than 95 million pounds of plastic resin and more than 125 million pounds of cardboard. For water alone, this is the equivalent of 100 million individual showers.

Pretty impressive in my view - we really need some big companies to get their act together to make big impacts like this! What do you think?

Tags: carbon footprint, green companies, Sustainability

Big Green Big Deal | flo | March 23, 2009 4:00 am

10 Comments

By Jay, March 24, 2009 @ 8:46 am

WalMart is doing all these for their own good anyway- these actions look like saving energy but in fact they do so simply to save money, right?
By flo, March 25, 2009 @ 12:31 am

indeed, walmart is doing all these for good PR and to save operating cost. but it’s the magnitude of their “good PR and saving money” that seem to have quite significant GHG reductions that an individual can not really do on his/her own…… as a power house in retail, they have so much power - good and bad! that’s why i can’t decide whether i shall be in favour of walmart or not…….
By Walker, March 30, 2009 @ 6:56 am

Who cares if they are doing it just to save money? Impact is impact as far as I’m concerned - the issues facing the planet and our communities are far too big to quibble about purity of intent. I say more power to them.
By flo, March 30, 2009 @ 7:30 am

To Wal-mart, i think they do care about saving money and building business cases to carry out more green initiatives! But for the rest of us, you’re right, a quantifiable GHG/energy reduction is an impact and as a huge company, they can have huge impact.. but does that make you want to shop at walmart more? that’s what i can’t decide….
By Jay, March 31, 2009 @ 12:19 am

Right, “Every week 176 million customers shop our stores.” I say likely they all DRIVE their cars to shop at Walmart. Guess how much GHG would be generated because of this. What if we instead shop locally by foot or bike? Walmart deserves the credit for their efforts aimed to reduce GHG and yes their actions do make big impact. But things meant to be good may not always bring good results overall.
By flo, March 31, 2009 @ 8:04 am

Hey Jay - people probably all drove to Walmart, but how is that different from driving to Costco or another big box store? Attacking just Walmart is a bit unfair for that…. but I completely agree with more biking and more local food whenever possible =).
By Jay, March 31, 2009 @ 9:10 am

Ha ha Flora, I guess I sounded too negative about Walmart, but in fact I’m neutral to these stores Walmart, Costco, Sams Club and the like. I lived in the US for a while and Walmart was the main store that I shopped. Not so in this area of Canada because of their locations. My point about Walmart’s statement is that money is still the driving force behind the green things they’ve being doing. And this is probably the universal driving force for most people for shopping and living in general too. That this economically-correct principle could be environmentally irresponsible is the point I was trying to make. Only if we design policy/mechanism right can we equate economy to environment. As for impact, I think Walmart is doing the right thing campaigning for public awareness.
By flo, March 31, 2009 @ 5:15 pm

Jay - completely in agreement. Most companies don’t really care about reducing carbon footprint if there is no incentives/punishment. Right now reducing energy consumption obviously saves company money and thus is a good thing to do. the “added value” of good PR is just something that comes with it. I wish more companies do that so that the impact is even more significant!!

LoLee Green

Can we shop our way to sustainability?