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Giving credit where credit is due
November 24, 2008

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is this week?! Time seems to go faster and faster each year. Or is it just me?

Last year this time, I lamented on our seemingly thoughtless shopping culture and how the national shopping mania was damaging our environment.

My sentiment seems a bit different this year. We are in an unprecedented financial crisis. Many large companies in the Silicon Valley are in a panic mode, freezing all hiring, cutting jobs, and drastically reducing spending. Nationally it isn’t any better if not worse.

I almost feel guilty for not buying much stuff. Almost.

Here comes the biggest shopping day of the year, this Friday. What’s one to do? Honestly it is ridiculous that I am debating with myself whether I should go shopping to support the economy. Sigh.

Let’s say that somehow I decide to contribute to the economy this year, where should I put my dollars?

I’ve always been proud for not visiting Wal-mart, which has notorious labor and environmental practices.

So it surprised me to hear that the company announced in a sustainability summit in Beijing that all their suppliers were required to cut energy consumption by 20 percent, starting at the beginning of 2009.

Wal-mart has been working hard on supplier issues because they realized that the biggest part of their impact was not really their own operations, as big as they are, it’s what happens upstream, as they say, with all the products and where they’re made and there was only so long they could work on supply issues without going to China.

China supplies 70, 80 percent of the toys in the world, a huge chunk of the apparel, etc, etc. So they had to go there and what they’ve set is very tough goals – they said you have to meet certain environmental and social standards, you have to comply with the law in China, which is not something most manufacturers do.

Why is Wal-mart making such a seemingly stringent demand on its suppliers? I, for one, don’t believe a corporation is able to be or required to be altruistic.

Andrew Winston, a green consultant working for Wal-mart said, “I think the number of people who will pay more for green or sustainable products is still pretty small, and it’s probably going to stay small, especially now in tight times. But there’s sort of a different group of consumers, which is what some people call the conflicted consumers or conscious consumers. People who want more from their products. They think about where the product came from or how much energy it uses. And they care about those issues nearly as much as they care about the price and quality. But they want those things, I think, with no tradeoffs and that’s the big goal, I think, in sustainable products, finding ways to satisfy customers and satisfy their environmental and social needs without asking them to pay more.”

I think Wal-mart is just running a smart business. Years ago, little known to most customers, Wal-mart had the most advanced information system which served to reduce their operation cost a great deal.

Today they are simply betting that energy reduction IS the future. Product safety and labor fairness will very soon become a part of standard business practice. Wal-mart is staying ahead of the curve. When the rest of the retailers catch on, Wal-mart will remain to be the leader. This kind sound business strategy, I can respect.

Now that Wal-mart has talked the talk, it is time to watch whether they can walk the walk. For me, who remains to be somewhat a skeptic of Wal-mart for now, Walmart Watch is a place to monitor the company’s true behavior.

Shop at Wal-mart this year, anyone?

CindyW at Organicpicks

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