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Wal-Mart CEO: It's Not Easy Being Green

Posted by ZP Heller, AlterNet at 8:46 PM on March 15, 2008.


There's no way Wal-Mart can fix the irreparable harm they've caused to our planet in such a short span of time, if ever.
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Lee Scott

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Surprise, surprise! At this week's ECO:nomics conference in California, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott declared, "We are not green." This after the world's largest (and worst) retailer spent the last three years touting its environmental stewardship. Though Scott was unusually candid about Wal-Mart's inability to "green" themselves up, his admission only validates what many environmentalists already knew : There's no way Wal-Mart can fix the irreparable harm they've caused to our planet in such a short span of time, if ever.

Not too long ago, Scott pledged that Wal-Mart's massive "greenup on aisle five" would include investing $500 million in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing truck-fuel efficiency, reducing packaging, and creating more energy-efficient stores. What's more, Scott vowed to pressure Wal-Mart's global suppliers to follow their new responsible lead. But could they really have zero waste? Or use 100 percent renewable energy?

These goals seemed so lofty that it didn't shock me when I read that Wal-Mart isn't green, or that Scott answered a question about when a complete green overhaul might happen by saying, "I have no idea when that will be." What I found particularly troubling though was when Scott started talking about what waste meant to him and the company. He was talking about bottled water. After pointing out the tragic irony that there was bottled water right there at the conference on environmental capital, Scott explained why Wal-Mart continues to sell bottled water , "We have to stay in business... If the customer wants bottled water, we're going to sell bottled water."

While Wal-Mart may be working to reduce their carbon footprint, it became clear that to Scott, reducing waste means making money, not fulfilling an environmental promise. "It really is about how you take cost out, which is waste," Scott concluded. Let's face it, Wal-Mart has engaged in greenwashing here and we've fallen for it, hoping that the world's largest retailer would miraculously grow a conscience. Instead, Wal-Mart has only distracted environmentalists from the company's woeful record while they pursue their bottom line--cutting costs and making profits. We should've known something was up when the NGOs that Wal-Mart looked to for advice on sustainability made the company guarantee anonymity so that these groups wouldn't jeopardize their enviro-credibility when things went south.

I wonder what groups like Environmental Defense--organizations that claimed to be working with Wal-Mart to fix their problems from the inside--will do now that Scott's greedy intentions are out in the open. I wonder how Adam Werbach, the former Sierra Club sell-out, will try to spin this one. Wal-Mart isn't just "a new breed of toxin," as Werbach once said (before hypocritically taking on Wal-Mart, and a huge salary from them, as a client through Act Now Productions); they just brought their toxic breed to a whole new insidious level. And as for you, Mr. Scott, it's certainly not easy being green, particularly when you had disingenuous intentions about going green in the first place. Check out a more complete picture of Wal-Mart's shoddy environmental past.

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Tagged as: environment, energy, pollution, walmart. scott

ZP Heller is the editorial director of Brave New Films. He has written for The American Prospect, AlterNet, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Huffington Post, covering everything from politics to pop culture.


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Wal-Mart lied - this is a surprise?
Posted by: lepidopteryx on Mar 16, 2008 6:14 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wal_mart's #1 goal has always been to minmize costs and maximize profits, no matter what it takes to do that. That includes vioating trade and labor laws, displacing other businesses, removing people from their homes through imminent domain, and poisoning the planet.

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It all
Posted by: JoshuaLudd on Mar 16, 2008 7:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It all raises some interesting questions about whether or not we can ever green up an industrialized consumerist system like ours to begin with.

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» Exactly. Posted by: andabottleof_rum
This Company is Anathema to Progressives
Posted by: wolfie001 on Mar 16, 2008 7:18 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What more can a progressive add to my title? Go to www.walmart-blows.com and read some of the horror stories by WM's current and former employees. The small amount of $ a shopper saves at WM is repaid exponentially through the deterioration of their neighborhoods as well as their livelihoods.

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Tax carbon based fuels and Wal-Mart will figure out how to reduce its use of them.
Posted by: KeepsonTickn on Mar 17, 2008 5:58 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wal-Mart reacts to the world it faces with a single-minded fixation on profit through cost reduction. It will also attempt to game the system with that goal in mind.

The best way to get truly green behavior out of Wal-Mart is to make truly green behavior profitable. The easiest way to do that is to artificially increase the costs of fossil fuels over extraction costs by taxing them till the price reflects their true cost to society.

Forced to pay true costs, Wal-Mart would become a powerful force for sustainability, provided they could not buy off enough lawmakers to corrupt the system.

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Wal-Mart is us
Posted by: willymack on Mar 17, 2008 12:44 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We're them. Unless this marriage is annuled, it'll be business as usual.

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It was a forced marriage!
Posted by: nightgaunt on Mar 17, 2008 1:48 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When Sam Walton diecided to control every area of his business and the Bush-Cheney Axis of Evil helped to send jobs overseas.It sealed the fate of those of us who can just barely afford purchasing necessities and Walmart was th defacto place to go. I go to HEB myself.
I try not to support the downsizing of the USA middle and lower classes. (I am of the legion of working poor-no savings,expect to work as long as I am allowed)
So far I am on disability and wonder what I will do when the that is cut off by the Neolibrals re Merchantilists of the corporate state. To them ,if I can't support myself,I should die. Not good prospects for the future.
The fascists may get their utopia after all. Remember in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia that was their utopia!

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Please help save America/Boycott Walmart
Posted by: mindtrvlr on Mar 17, 2008 9:36 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I do. Recently I have been comparing prices of diffeent products sold at local stores, markets, and Walmart. Almost 100% of the time , I have found that I can purchase almost anything at a local store for the same or better price than Walmarts prices. I live in Athens. Al., and there has been a trend at Walmart to be consistly raising their prices. Even if you find that you might save a few cents there, it is not worth the hassle of putting up with the parking, crowded stores, products out of stock, and rude emplyees and checkers who spend more time gabbing and making mistakes in checking out. If you you check your receipts, you will find that almost always there are one or two items that are overcharged. I'am not even going into the time I wasted , along with others trying to get service in the auto department. I went there one day to save $10 on a tire and had to wait four hours while the kids(employees)spent most of there time playing around with spray bottles, and taking breaks, and so on. I'll never go there again. Complaining gets you no where, as they ignore you anyway. I'll shop at the Dollar store, Piggly wiggly, Walgreens, or Big lot, to save and be treated like a customer should be. I live off Social Security and have to watch my spending. I used to go to Walmart to save , but not any more. With everything going sky high on prices, I think Walmart is intentionally sneeking there prices up. Don't even bother trying to save in the electronis dept. You can find what you want a lot cheaper if you just do a little checking around for sales at other stores. This lousy scum of a store buys there goods from China , made by slave labor and children. They should be shut down as far as I'am concerned.

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