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CSRwire Weekly News Alert
7.15.2008 - 11:59pm ET
The Latest Corporate Social Responsibility News - The Greening of Wal-Mart?
It's been almost three years since Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott busted out of the
defensive bunkers and went on the green offensive in his 21st Century Leadership speech, setting the ambitious goals of
all renewable energy, zero waste, and sustainable products. Then, as now,
the greening of Wal-Mart receives a bifurcated response: "Wal-Mart's
immense influence can muscle the global economy toward sustainability"; or
"Wal-Mart's inherently unsustainable business model (poor wages/benefits,
union-busting, expansive siting, etc…) exposes its environmental
initiatives as greenwash."
On the former front, this week Wal-Mart unveiled a new
jewelry line (called "Love, Earth"), the first to be completely traceable
from mine to store. For example, Wal-Mart partnered with Newmont to
supply gold from its Nevada mines. Last year, Wal-Mart joined Oxfam
America’s No Dirty Gold campaign, and going forward, the
company's Jewelry Sustainable Value Network (one of 14) seeks to
eventually hold all of the gold, silver, and diamonds sold to
Wal-Mart's sustainability standards, which include environmental, human
rights, and community criteria. For a sense of the scope of this
challenge, the retailer aims to have at least 10 percent of its jewelry
achieve these standards by 2010.
Flipping this statistic on its head exposes the core dilemma: Wal-Mart
currently operates in a context that is more than 90 percent
unsustainable (when it comes to jewelry – and likewise for many
other products.) Which begs the question: is a system that's almost
completely unsustainable worth fixing, or is it better to simply abandon
the Wal-Mart model in favor of a more functional system?
Wal-Mart has clearly anticipated this solution, and is aligning its
operations with models acknowledged for their more inherent
sustainability. For example, Wal-Mart is the largest seller of
organic produce in the world, as The Meatrix Executive Producer
Diane Hatz points out in response to the recent dialogue between Whole
Foods and Wal-Mart at the LOHAS conference. "And industrial organic
or not, that's millions and millions of acres of soil not being injected
with chemical fertilizers and tons of produce not being sprayed with
persistent chemical pesticides," Hatz writes. "And that's a good thing."
Wal-Mart has also become the nation's largest purchaser of local produce,
according to Grist food writer Tom Philpott. However, he questions
how Wal-Mart defines "local" (apparently statewide, be it as small as
Vermont or as huge as Texas) and whether the company will adopt a "truly
sustainable" model of local sourcing that "works for mid-sized farms," or
"will it revert to its traditional bare-fisted, bully-the-supplier
tactics?"
Shareholder
activist Conrad MacKerron similarly questions the supply chain implications
of Wal-Mart's greening – especially for workers. As with its usual
practice, Wal-Mart is primarily passing along costs – including the cost
of greening – to its suppliers. Who will in most instances pass along
these costs to their workers. "Is it too much to expect Wal-Mart to deal
with labor and green issues at once?" MacKerron asks. The answer to this
question will determine whether Wal-Mart's greening is truly sustainable,
or greenwash.
This article was written by CSRwire contributor Bill Baue.
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To read the latest corporate social responsibility news from
AmeriCares, Weber Shandwick, Center for Resource Solutions and other
leading socially responsible organizations, visit http://www.csrwire.com/LastAlert.html.
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