Is Wal-Mart making my eco-dream come true?

The Greenwash Brigade

UPDATE 7/15/09 2:53pm — Sam Eaton previews Wal-Mart’s announcement on Marketplace today.

Anyone who has followed the Greenwash Brigade knows that my personal eco-dream is a single Sustainability Index that is easy for all consumers to understand, and that applies to everything from Acme Iron Bird Seed to a Trident Missile.

I think it would enable consumers who care - but who don’t care enough to research products on the Skin Deep Database before heading to the mall - to make better decisions on every purchase. And that they would, if it were valid and clearly placed on every product.

Daniel Goleman agrees with me. It seems WalMart agrees with me, too - and they’re making it happen.

My job is to write about greenwash, but until the index (and the messy, messy details underlaying it) are public, it’s impossible to say whether it is or it isn’t. The big W has been making significant steps for a while, so maybe they’ll do it right. The further I read, the more hope I have, because they seem to have the right players at the table - including my hometown big box brand Target and a host of life-cycle-analysis experts.

On the other hand, I have to agree with Gunther: “Who chose Wal-Mart to be America’s regulator?” I’m not sure I’d even trust Seventh Generation, a brand that has played a leading role in the corporate sustainability movement and in providing product information to consumers for two decades, to take this on! And Wal-Mart still has a long way to go to gain my trust.

For the moment, I’m glad someone is doing it (even if it is the biggest of the behemoths).

It will make a difference.

July 15, 2009 by Janne K. Flisrand
6 comments

tags: Seventh Generation sustainability index Wal-Mart

Comments (6)

Jim Nicolow | Respond
July 15, 2009 12:01 PM PT

This is a really exciting development. In the building industry, the release of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Rating System has catalized an explosion in interest in green building. As soon as there was an agreed upon metric (whether perfect or not), the entire building industry suddenly scrambled to meet its requirements.

Due to Walmart's sheer size, if they put out a reasonable standard for evaluating sustainability, manufacturers and suppliers will likely fall over themselves to beat the performance of their competitors. Transparency will be critical to its success (as has largely been the case with the consensus-based LEED standard). I look forward to seeing the details of Walmart's Sustainability Index.

In the interim, Eco Home Magazine published a thorough article on selecting green consumer products in the absence of a consensus standard: http://www.ecohomemagazine.com/green-products/keeping-them-honest.aspx

Dennis Markatos-Soriano | Respond
July 15, 2009 12:29 PM PT

Go, Wal-Mart!

I'm so glad the world's biggest retailer is making such a move - helping to reinvigorate some of my pride in being American.

But of course we all have to monitor what comes out of this process, identify its shortcomings, and educate the public so that both their Sustainability Index gets better and people can best judge the index.

I've been arguing for a while now that products should have a carbon label just like food now has a nutrition label. I hope their index includes such a tool.

And my Economics professors have always talked of the great things a market economy can do assuming perfect information (which of course was always missing). Will Wal-Mart's index help consumers get a step closer to the perfect information they need to create a better world through their purchasing decisions?

We'll see...

Heidi Siegelbaum | Respond
July 15, 2009 1:42 PM PT

I agree that it's interesting and I'm relieved to see Wal-Mart does not plan to "own" the index over the long term and that the Sustainability Consortium has a balanced network of professionals. However, this product index raises the same issue we have been addressing for almost two years which is the inherent tension of product vs. company assessments. I don't think the former can be fairly evaluated separate from the latter, like an unraveled strand of DNA.

I find it ironic and troubling that Wal-Mart- -despite their sophistication with LCAs and whacking their supply chain into submission-- still continues to wreak havoc on communities both socially and environmentally; are less philanthropic as a company than any of their competitors; and that they have not made more credible headway in changing manufacturing processes overseas where most of their products are from.

The Goodguide that Janne references is a B Corporation which is encouraging. Maybe Wal-Mart should read the manifestos in Corporation2020.org, or help build a sustainability index that will help it critically evaluate itself.

This said, having a well vetted sustainability index for commercial and residential consumers will be a splendid addition.

Donna | Respond
September 19, 2009 7:26 PM PT

I think it's HUGELY positive that a mainstream company as large as Walmart is turning their practices around to include a sustainability index. They can truly make a huge difference in creating public awareness of carbon footprints. I applaud the direction Walmart is taking.

Centaurea | Respond
October 11, 2009 8:34 AM PT

This is a positive step within the current context, but it's worth remembering that true environmental and economic sustainability will only happen with a return to economies that are rooted as much as possible in the predominance of smaller, local/regional businesses and supply chains, rather than gigantic global corporations like Wal-mart.

Tony | Respond
November 7, 2009 5:28 PM PT

I think it is a positive step that Walmart is making such a commitment. I was also pleased to learn that Walmart is taking a proactive approach to increasing the energy efficiency in their new construction, as a high-efficiency Walmart opened in a rural area of my city, Kansas City, KS. Hopefully, this will become a trend with more retailers.
High Efficiency Walmart in Kansas City, KS

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Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of American Public Media or its employees. American Public Media is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers.

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