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Wal-Mart's Latest Green Schtick

By Amanda Griscom Little, Grist.org. Posted August 1, 2006.


Al Gore took his green message to Wal-Mart headquarters, to much cheering and fanfare. Will the goliath retailer deliver on its promises?

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Picture Al Gore standing in a modest auditorium deep in America's heartland before an exultant crowd of Wal-Mart employees, comparing their campaign to lighten the company's environmental footprint to the Allies' righteous struggle in World War II. This after Rev. Jim Ball, head of the Evangelical Environmental Network, likened the giant retailer's greening efforts to the work of Jesus Christ.

This strange scene unfolded recently in Bentonville, Ark. The occasion was an environmental strategy meeting of some 800 Wal-Mart execs, managers, suppliers, and partners, where the heads of the corporation's various divisions -- from seafood and textiles to transportation and packaging -- outlined their respective green agendas.

The assembled employees did high-energy renditions of the Wal-Mart cheer, complete with fist-raising, grunting, and even a group wiggle. "Gimme a W! Gimme an A! Gimme an L! ... Whose Wal-Mart is it? Who's No. 1?" CEO H. Lee Scott pumped his team up further by calling Wal-Mart's newfound environmental focus a "higher purpose." There was also a rare appearance from company chair Rob Walton Jr. -- son of Wal-Mart's legendary founder and, as it happens, a member of Conservation International's board -- who beamed, "I love, love hearing the progress that is being made."

Mid-afternoon brought a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth"; more than a few audience members could be seen dabbing teary eyes as the documentary drew to a close. Then the entire crowd erupted into a standing ovation when the lights came back on and Gore trotted up to the stage, Tipper in tow.

"That's a larger round of applause than we gave for Wayne Newton!" joked Scott while introducing Gore, who, in turn, showered the audience with reciprocal cheer: "Doesn't it feel good to have this kind of [environmental] commitment? Don't you feel proud?"

An interview with accidental movie star Al Gore Sporting a curiously thick Southern drawl, Gore heaped praise on Wal-Mart's green goal-setting. His Allies analogy was particularly striking: "Look at what [the Allies] did with their victory. They found after winning that they had gained the moral authority and vision to lift up from their knees our defeated adversaries ... And by taking this climate crisis on frontally and making this commitment, you will gain the moral authority and vision as an organization to take on many great challenges."

Keenly aware of his Arkansas audience's Christian inclinations, Gore peppered his hour-long commentary with religious references. He quoted scripture, told a Bible story, and then offered a non-apologetic apology for the sermonizing: "I don't mean to proselytize here on my religious faith ... If you're an atheist or agnostic" -- dramatic pause -- "God bless you!"

Gore also waded into politics. He called the partisan bickering in Washington "pitiful, seriously pitiful," and mocked national leaders for "borrowing a ton of money from China to buy a ton of oil from Saudi Arabia to burn it in ways that destroy the inhabitability of the planet -- not a good pattern!" He also called for a radical overhaul of the American tax system: "We should sharply reduce payroll taxes and make it all up in CO2 taxes so the low- and middle-income people don't bear the cost burden of this big transition in energy sources."

His whole spiel sounded like a dry run for red-state campaigning in 2008. So it only made sense when, in bidding Gore adieu, Scott asked the big question: "Are you going to run for president?" Wild applause ensued, but Gore's response was predictably understated: "There's a lot about the political system that I think is really toxic ... [and] that I don't think I'm good at," he said. "I really believe that the highest and best use of my experience and skills may be to concentrate all-out on changing the minds of the American people about the [climate] crisis. That way, whoever does run for president faces an electorate that flat-out demands that they make this their priority."

The Odd Couple

The pairing up of Gore, this season's It Boy in Hollywood and other left-leaning circles, and Wal-Mart, the goliath retailer loved in red states and loathed in blue cities, seems bizarre on its face -- and couldn't have happened before this year. But now, with Gore trying to spread climate awareness beyond the choir and Scott trying to give Wal-Mart a high-profile green makeover, the match actually makes sense.

Last October, Scott pledged to transform his sprawling company, which employs 1.8 million people worldwide and ranks No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list, into a lean green machine powered exclusively by renewable energy, producing zero waste, and selling sustainable products. Those goals are so lofty they sound downright deluded, but Scott has followed them up with specific, seemingly achievable commitments and timetables. He aims, for example, to reduce Wal-Mart's total greenhouse-gas emissions 20 percent by 2012, and invest $500 million in environmental improvements each year.

Andy Ruben, Wal-Mart's vice president for corporate strategy and sustainability, reasons that the 100 percent renewable-energy goal could be met largely with greater efficiencies. "We can use 70 percent less energy to do what we're doing today, and supply the rest with renewables," Ruben suggested at last week's meeting.

The gathering brought forth more green goals from divisions throughout the company. In the area of seafood, Wal-Mart is working with the World Wildlife Fund to identify, and purchase exclusively from, sustainable fisheries. It's moving toward organic cottons in its apparel and bedding lines. The jewelry division is developing a sustainable certification program for the gold mines it works with, and exploring outlets for recycled gold. The transportation division is planning to double the efficiency of its truck fleet, one of the largest in the U.S., within a decade. The construction division is developing prototype stores that are 30 percent more energy-efficient than current stores, and the company also aims to improve efficiency at existing stores by 20 percent. The packaging department is working to eliminate its waste stream by 2015, using reusable, recycled, and biodegradable containers.


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Amanda Griscom Little writes the Muckraker column for Grist Magazine.

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View:
go green
Posted by: rsaxto on Aug 1, 2006 4:50 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If we can get the WalMart goliath to go green then most of the little Davids will follow suit and we will be on our way to creating a sustainable Earth for all of us.

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Oh, the altruism
Posted by: sausage on Aug 1, 2006 6:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
With Wal-Mart the bottom line is the bottom line. And, as young RFK,Jr. is wont to point out, business going green makes green, acting ecologically is not only good for the corporate soul (read, public image) it's good for the profit margin. Simple equation here, lower HVAC costs, keep profits up.

And the Wal-Mart execs are all something of "conservationists", what with their mansions dotting the northshore of the masive man-made Beaver Lake just south of Bentonville. They so love nature.

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Promote Al Gore: PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: coldeye on Aug 1, 2006 7:58 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When Hilary is President, the ex-lawyer for WalMart will no doubt push through legislation requiring large interstate retailers to certify that their products are environmentally safe, were made in green-friendly ways, do not enhance carbon emissions and were handled and manufactured by workers recieving living wages and decent health care.

Her Secretary of State, Al Gore, will travel the world informing governments like Mexico, Brazil, China and South Korea that the US will be self-sufficient in energy and that we will keep their slave labor and dirty environment goods out of America, as Americans will go back to work making products for Americans. The unemployment rate for black males will then plunge to 5%.

HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Oh yeah, and they will ratify and implement Kyoto. Just like Gore and B. Clinton did with a Democratic run Senate.

HA HA HA.

Keep pumping up Al Gore suckers.

He's the best agent for those of us who think the "catastrophic" alleged dangers of human-caused global warming is an overblown fraud.

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» Priceless Posted by: coldeye
Big Box Stores Are Inherently Destructive
Posted by: LuisaO on Aug 1, 2006 8:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No matter how many fluorescent bulbs, hybrid trucks, or any other nifty things they implement, the entire model on which big box stores is based is devastating. The consumption of land, fuel, massive increases in runoff that depletes aquifers...the list is long. Here's a fine piece expounding on WalMart Greenwashing

The bottom line: if you care about having an inhabitable planet, avoid big box stores to the greatest degree you can and buy from local, independently owned businesses.

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Dispatch from Flyover Country
Posted by: NoPCZone on Aug 1, 2006 9:27 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I have no love for Wal-Mart. Despite that sentiment they are the biggest retailer, purchaser and private employer in the world which makes them very important in this struggle.

Wal-Mart has always been about green-- money green. They constantly and consistently squeeze every nickel they can out of operations and suppliers to give them more profit on thinner margins. If Wal-Mart starts to see real savings by adopting sustainable practices they will rapidly adopt it throughout the system because there is money in it.

The prophets of sustainable practices have long preached it's economic sense & it's now time to put up or shut up.

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Walmart going green? Too fucking good to be true !!!
Posted by: maxpayne on Aug 1, 2006 4:04 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If Walmart was really serious about cutting gas costs, the Waltons should have fought to make hemp legal rather than wasting taxpayer money on school "vouchers" and tax cuts for Paris Hilton ! Scott Lee knows that ethanol-based gas uses far more petroleum compared to hemp produced oil which is totally independent from petroleum. Nah, gotta kiss them Saudis and keep importing defective goods thanks to "free" trade of corporate socialism !

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Walmart a flop in Germany
Posted by: blitzmesser on Aug 1, 2006 4:17 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The American discount chain Wal-Mart is a worldwide phenomenon -- but in Germany, the world's third largest market for retail goods, it has been an embarassing flop. All 85 of its stores will be sold to Metro Group, its German competitor. The Americans overreached themselves, say industry experts.
By Anne Seith more...
You can read this in Spiegel International today.

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Any body got a joint they can spare?
Posted by: Againstthewindwalking on Aug 5, 2006 4:45 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I really think I should be stoned while I read shit like this, and my sack's run dry!

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