Taking care of our planet – together
By Andrea Thomas on January 6, 2012 7 comments
When we launched our new sustainability blog earlier this week, we committed to a vibrant conversation about helping people around the world live better. We asked for your thoughts and ideas, and you are delivering!
You can see reader posts, as well as The Green Room’s responses. I’d like to directly answer feedback from Andrew Revkin, who tweeted an excellent question: “Can a company selling consumption so hard also sell sustainability?” Andy also linked to the blog Dot Earth where he asks: “Can we have it all? Can we have cheap shirts and disposable batteries in a world heading toward 9 billion people seeking a decent life?”
His questions were echoed by Matthew McDermott, in a TreeHugger piece Wednesday. He asks: “Should Walmart even exist; can its business model be ever made compatible with a growing human population and decreasing resources?”
I’ve been asked that question many times, and I truly believe that everyone – individuals, NGOS, businesses, governments – absolutely everyone must step up and be responsible for the caretaking of our planet. That includes corporations, and as the world’s largest retailer, we have a unique ability and responsibility to make a difference.
We can use our size and scale to lead change on a global scale. With more than 100,000 suppliers, our decisions to use only sustainable palm oil in private-label products or source beef that has not contributed to deforestation in Brazil creates a ripple effect and others follow. It also results in change that makes its way into shopping carts and homes around the world.
People will always need food, clothing and other necessities, but if we can provide healthier, more sustainable options at prices everyone can afford, then we should. We must.
One example of how this works: we know that LED lighting uses less energy, produces less heat and lasts longer, so we helped develop the technology for use in our freezer cases. Now it’s almost impossible to find a refrigerated case anywhere not lit by LEDs. We worked with the EPA and other retailers to create the specs for LED lighting in parking lots, which are now standard in a number of our global operations including Mexico and Central America. Most recently we expanded LEDs to our sales floors, and other companies are following Walmart’s lead and integrating LED lighting to achieve similar savings and efficiency.
We are rolling out changes all across our company, and eliminating products and processes that are not sustainable. And we want to do that in partnership with others, including our critics.
Marc Gunther recently took a close look at our sustainability history and urged Walmart to be accountable and to speak more forcefully and openly about sustainability. I ask the same of you. Hold us accountable, talk with us and please, let’s continue this work and conversation.
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1.
David Hestrin | January 8, 2012 at 2:46 am
More areas to play at. Humans should be able to live an integrated natural lifestyle where they can grow food and plant trees and share. Just like there are wild-life preserves where animals can live there ought to be wild-life preserves where humans can live.
2.
Del Andrus | January 9, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I would like to compliment Andrea's approach to this sometimes highly controversial topic, by saying thank you for attempting to have an open and honest conversational format. I hope this will stimulate an increase in transparency for business associates, as well as consumers. If Wallmart can truly speak openly and honestly about the issues, what a great standard/impact it would have for the rest of the market.
I would also like to compliment her comment by stating that indeed we all should/can hold ourselves accountable for sustainability practices. While we may not have all of the perfect answers from A-Z, let's start with what we can do right now, and look forward to progression as we increase in our habits, priorities and technologies. I work in the green packaging industry, and while what we have now may not be a "silver bullet" for the market, it is an excellent start to a better future towards sustainability. The key is doing something now, and improve as you go along, staying educated on innovation and impoved practices/data that can get you closer to "perfectly" sustainable. I am looking forward to great communication and information exchange with this format-thumbs up.
3.
Walmart Green Room | January 10, 2012 at 11:12 am
Thanks for your comment, Del! We are excited to showcase our interest in creating a more sustainable world to help people live better. Check back later today for the next post from Walmart Green Room!
4.
eli morse | January 15, 2012 at 10:47 pm
I am curious about recycling availability to the public. Oversight necessary from staff, additional positions added to ensure compliance?
5.
Walmart Green Room | January 17, 2012 at 8:54 am
Thanks for your question Eli. All of our stores offer public recycling bins where you can recycle, including your plastic shopping bags. Additionally, any Walmart store with a Tire & Lube Express offers car battery and used motor oil recycling. To take a look at some of our other sustainability goals, check out our Sustainability page and stay tuned for more updates on the Green Room blog!
6.
Timothy Barksdale | January 16, 2012 at 11:40 am
Andrea,I truly hope you are correct. I am beginning to have my doubts. Not so much about Walmart, but about the entire economic system and how it effects the critically important Natural World. You are exactly right about people’s needs. I am very pleased to see that you are in a position to be a real leader.When I first heard about Walmart’s plan to put solar on every store, I was very encouraged. So please continue this effort, as rapidly as your company can, if not faster.As I travel (the last couple of years, mostly in the Midwest) your stores are regular stops of mine. So from a first hand basis I urge you to continue your efforts to bring more accurate facts to your customers. How could you do 1 fact about our world to your customers attention each day?Science is all about repeating results. This is now a common part of our speech as identified by the sayings like ” if you expect different results from doing the same thing again and again…. followed by some thing like insane.. ” I think that 7 Billion people is an awful lot of mouths. This going number is where the rubber meets the road in terms of what species really survive. The transformation of what was rural in 1950 to today is dramatic if not tragic. And the scary part is that it is happening from Tierra del Fuego to N. Baffin Island. There is not a single place on this planet which is unaffected by humans.So how do we very quickly get folks to really, down deep, understand? This is the critical question of our age. Humanities existence depends upon it. The other question is how long can we completely act like the destruction of the natural world and even down to the soils does not effect anything?Thank you for accepting responsibility and acting upon it!
7.
Walmart Green Room | January 17, 2012 at 9:10 am
Thanks for your interest in the blog, Timothy. We take our sustainability goals seriously and are working hard to create a more sustainable world to help people live better. If you’d like to find out more about our sustainability efforts, please take a look at the Walmart 2011 Global Responsibility Report and don’t forget to check the Green Room for updates!