<incom> FW: [TriumphOfContent] Wal-Mart's Green Makeover

[Gurstein, Michael]

-----Original Message-----
From: TriumphOfContent at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:TriumphOfContent at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Steven Brant
Sent: August 8, 2006 7:31 PM
To: Triumph-Of Content
Subject: [TriumphOfContent] Wal-Mart's Green Makeover


Please note - there are numerous links built into the online version  
of this article. - Steve


http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/08/walmarts_green_makeover.php

Wal-Mart's Green Makeover

David Roberts

August 08, 2006

David Roberts is a staff writer at Grist Magazine. His blog is   
http://gristmill.grist.org.

Last October, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. gave a remarkable speech  
to his employees. He pledged to transform Wal-Mart-the world's  
largest retailer, No. 2 on the Fortune 500-into a company that runs  
entirely on renewable energy and produces zero net waste.

It was an outrageously bold promise, and a bit disorienting.

Wal-Mart's green-tinted, come-to-Jesus moment presents political  
progressives with at least two dilemmas. First, do we believe Scott  
has taken the green gospel to heart? And second, does this mean its  
okay to cheer Wal-Mart?

All the talk in the progressive community these days is about  
building a broad, holistic movement to replace the desiccated  
collection of interest-group silos that is the post-Southern- 
realignment left. "Checklist liberalism," as one wag called it, is  
supposed to be on its way out.

Then along comes Wal-Mart, checking the "green" box, but  
conspicuously failing to check the "labor" box, and ... well, what?

It's too early to tell for sure, but Wal-Mart's environmental  
initiatives do appear substantive. Scott's commitments go well beyond  
what would be necessary for a successful greenwashing campaign.  
(Hell, BP pulled one of those off with little more than a name change.)

The holy trinity of genuine business transformation is: 1) public  
goals and timetables, 2) buy-in at every level of the company, and c)  
transparent reporting.

Wal-Mart has hit two of the three: Scott announced specific goals,  
and by all accounts Wal-Mart associates are invigorated by the  
challenge and the sense of moral mission.

As for transparent reporting, time will tell, but with all the  
scrutiny the announcements have drawn, it would be extraordinarily  
difficult to back out quietly. The company has already set up more  
than a dozen "sustainable value networks," each focused on a  
particular area like packaging or facilities, each made up of Wal- 
Mart managers and outside educators, regulators, and  
environmentalists. A lot of people are involved who wouldn't hesitate  
to call foul if Wal-Mart stalled or backed out.

In close consultation with Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute,  
Scott pledged to double the efficiency of Wal-Mart's enormous truck  
fleet by 2015 and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from its existing  
stores and warehouses by 20 percent over the same stretch. By 2008,  
Wal-Mart will have a store design that uses 30 percent less energy  
and produces 30 percent fewer GHG emissions, developed out of the  
experimental green stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado.  
It will reduce solid waste from its stores and clubs by 25 percent in  
three years.

The company also plans to reduce overall packaging, move heavily into  
organic products (textiles and food), and even-if you believe the  
chatter-buy more local food.

Wal-Mart's notorious monopsony powers force suppliers to bend to its  
will or suffer. Normally this is a lamentable state of affairs, but  
if such power is wielded on behalf of the environment, the  
ramifications could be astounding. By Scott's own reckoning, 90  
percent of Wal-Mart's environmental impact will come through  
influence on its supply chain.

For example, the company is ordering wild-caught seafood from  
fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. It's  
developing a sustainable certification system for gold. In areas  
where Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer-and those are legion-its  
demands could transform whole industries.

Influence will also pass forward into the enormous customer base.  
More than other greening companies like GE and Goldman Sachs, Wal- 
Mart has direct, personal relationships with millions and millions of  
ordinary Americans of every class and color. It can educate them  
about eco-friendly products and behaviors; indeed, in its ubiquity it  
cannot help but educate them. The company is also a cultural icon,  
the very emblem of Middle America. By embracing green thinking, Wal- 
Mart could drain it of its poisonous ideological connotations and  
enshrine it instead as common sense. Ecology could be removed from  
the culture wars.

And finally, influence will move out laterally, as a signal to other  
businesses that green is smart. Environmentalists have been saying  
for years that business eco-makeover need not be an act of altruism.  
Reducing waste-wasted energy, wasted packaging, wasted time-is the  
very essence of good management. Despite Scott's moral gloss, Wal- 
Mart would not be undertaking these reforms if they weren't going to  
pay off in the bottom line.

In his October speech, Scott asked rhetorically, "What if we used our  
size and resources to make this country and this earth an even better  
place for all of us: customers, associates, our children, and  
generations unborn? ... Is this consistent with our business model?"

Is it? The dilemma for progressives is that Wal-Mart seems to have  
answered, "yes and no." Yes, its business model is consistent with a  
strong environmental ethic, but no, it has no room for higher wages  
or better health care for its employees. In contrast to the  
environmental promises, the sections of Scott's speech devoted to  
wages and health care are wan. "Even slight overall adjustments to  
wages eliminate our thin profit margin," he said with frank resignation.

That Wal-Mart is a particularly evil employer is taken as gospel in  
some quarters, but it's worth noting that neither Wal-Mart's wages  
nor its benefits are at the bottom of the American economy, or even  
the retail sector. There is at least some debate in progressive  
circles whether Wal-Mart's rock-bottom prices increase the purchasing  
power of the working class enough to offset its low wages and minimal  
health care coverage.

Laying those debates aside, the simple fact is that Wal-Mart is a  
creature of our time: late-stage U.S. corporate capitalism and  
uninterested in repairing the tattered New Deal social safety net.

Since Reagan, labor laws have become progressively more anti-union.  
Middle-class wages have stagnated. The minimum wage hasn't been  
raised in almost a decade, and is at its lowest relative value in 50  
years.

And of course, the elephant in the room is America's grossly  
dysfunctional health care system. It could be argued that activists  
are making a tactical error by focusing on Wal-Mart on this issue.  
The ideal outcome would not be improved health care benefits at one  
corporation. The ideal would be universal, publicly-funded health  
care, so that every American business could free itself of the  
administrative and financial burdens of covering its employees, and  
every working class American could be confident in his or her access  
to care.

For better or worse, repairing the social safety net will be a matter  
for good government, not the hoped-for altruistic impulses of a  
publicly-held corporation. If progressive activists want to change  
the circumstances of Wal-Mart's employees, they could aim to change  
the system in which the company operates. Even Scott seems to agree;  
he won't raise wages higher than his retail competitors, but he has  
called for a rise in the minimum wage.

No one will argue any time soon that Wal-Mart deserves uncritical  
embrace. Its borderline-illegal treatment of unions, women, and part- 
time workers are rightly deplored. Its massive stores swallow  
undeveloped and agricultural land at a stomach-turning pace. Its  
arrival heralds doom for smaller local businesses.

Progressives should continue to push for government reform of health  
care, labor law, and the minimum wage. They should lobby for an end  
to the vast web of friendly regulations, tax breaks, and subsidies  
that bias the market in favor of big-box retail. They should continue  
to put public pressure on Wal-Mart. And given Scott's disarming  
desire to make Wal-Mart a force for good, they should partner with  
the company at every opportunity to accelerate and expand its recent  
initiatives.

The fight is never over, and life offers few unqualified victories.  
But the largest retailer in the world has publicly and sincerely  
committed itself to sustainability. For that, we can lay down our  
swords for a round of applause.

But only for a moment.



 
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