Green Wombat

I just returned from the Society of Environmental Journalists‘ annual conference, where a hot topic of conversation was Wal-Mart. Like nearly everything the world’s largest retailer does, its recent conversion to the green gospel will have an outsized impact on global warming efforts and the market for environmentally sensitive products and organic food.  When Wal-Mart (WMT) announces it favors capping greenhouse gas emissions and creating a carbon trading market, even flat-earth politicos tend to listen. The company sent its VP for corporate strategy and sustainability, Andrew Ruben, to the SEJ conference in Burlington, Vermont, to talk about the company’s environmental initiatives. "We have a goal of using 100 percent renewable" energy, he said Friday at a panel on "Corporate Green," though he acknowledged Wal-Mart has no time line to achieve that target.

But it’s clear that Wal-Mart sees going green as good for the bottom line. Ruben said the company has retrofitted its fleet of 7,200 trucks with a device that reduces the amount of diesel they consume while idling, saving $25 million in annual fuel costs and cutting many metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. And there’s no denying Wal-Mart’s ability to influence consumer behavior. For instance, after the company increased the amount of shelf space devoted to high efficiency light bulbs from 5 percent to 20 to 30 percent, some stores reported an immediate 10 percent jump in sales of compact fluorescent bulbs. Ruben said Wal-Mart is trying to sell 100 million such light bulbs this year, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 metric tons.

But prominent environmental author Bill McKibben said such efforts, while

praiseworthy, do nothing to change the consumerist culture that’s the root cause of global warming.
"Climate scientists tell us we need an immediate 70 percent reduction in the use of fossil fuels" to avert catastrophic climate change, he said. Thinking that you can solve global warming by "taking the American middle class, high consumption lifestyle and rejigger it a little….is a fantasy. What’s the purpose of getting people to use energy efficiency light bulbs? So people will have more money to spend at Wal-Mart. That model won’t work."

Still, Wal-Mart’s embrace of sustainable products has green businesses rethinking their approach to the retailer. Jeff Hollender is the CEO of Seventh Generation, a Burlington, Vermont, company that sells non-toxic household cleansers, detergents and paper products made from renewable sources. "While I spent years yelling at them and harassing them, if they can be part of the solution then you need to work with them," said Hollender at the conference. For instance, he said he’s talking to Wal-Mart about requiring its cleaning products suppliers to list their cleansers’ ingredients on the label – something federal law does not require – so consumers can compare conventional products with ecologically sensitive ones. "If they decided to do that, things would change overnight," he said.

If fact, today Wal-Mart announced it would work with its suppliers over the next two years to find more environmentally benign subsitutes for 20 "chemicals of concern" used in various products.

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