It feels so counter-intuitive. If someone were to take a poll of which American corporation would be leading the charge to address climate change, chances are few would cast their vote for the company that has the reputation for destroying Main Street, U.S.A, being miserly on employee benefits, and strong-arming vendors to cut and re-cut their profit margins.

Wal-Mart,the largest private employer in the country, and the company many of us love to hate has apparently climbed aboard the sustainability train thanks to a woman named Coral Rose. More about Coral Rose in a moment.
in the process,Wal-Mart has many an environmental advocate doing the unthinkable ---gushing with praise.

From Alison Kriscenski of Greener Assets,

Wal-Mart’s recent Live Better Sustainability Summit and sustainable initiatives have sent a green ripple out from the mega-retailer that has reached down the supply chain to surprise even the harshest of critics. Wal-Mart is aggressively investing approximately $500 million annually in technologies and innovation to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, develop a 20% more efficient prototype and increase fleet efficiency by 25 percent in the next 3 years, doubling efficiency in the next 10 years. Let’s face it, if Wal-Mart is willing to invest this much in sustainability there is a pay-off to going green.

On October10th, Wal-Mart hosted a Sustainability Summit for 2000 representatives of its vendors. The vendors had an opportunity to meet some of the most innovative green businesses, non-profits and institutions throughout the world. In addition, the vendors had an opportunity to hear Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott talk about the need for sustainability, transparency, efficiency and accountability all the way down the supply chain.

Sami Grover, covered the event for Treehugger Forums.

The main event was a speech by CEO Lee Scott in which he stated in no
uncertain terms that Wal-Mart is in this for the long haul, and expects
its suppliers to be in it for the long haul too. Scott pointed out that
while his company is aiming for zero waste and 100% renewable energy,
this still only accounts for 8% of its footprint, and that Wal-Mart
must green its supply chain if it has any chance of becoming
sustainable (Scott was also at pains to point out that the company is
not, and does not claim to be, a green organization – it is just
starting to move in that direction).

Mary Hunt of In Women We Trust also attended the Summit.

What set Wal Mart in the sustainable direction? A woman and then about 190,000 other women buying up organic cotton yoga outfits at Sam's Club. They sold out in 10 weeks.
Lee Scott, President and CEO of Wal Mart said on a Sustainability CD they were handing out, "We were paying very little attention to it, [Climate Change], but more of our customers were paying attention to it... the first thing that we saw that gave us a glimmer, was Sam's organic cotton yoga outfit, which sold out so quickly. That was the first inkling that there is a business strategy here." I learned later on that CD that Wal Mart put in the largest buy for organic cotton that Turkey (the country) ever received. What that means is that more organic cotton will be available for everyone at lower and lower prices. If buying organic cotton is a step towards getting rid of pesticides in the soil and water, Wal Mart just did the world a big favor. With it's first bulk purchase, it created the economic base for a whole new, safe market. Now it's doing the same thing for seafood, jewelry, forestry and electronics. While others are waiting for Washington to act, Wal Mart is doing something. The truth is, even if Washington did act, it would still be asking for the same things that Wal Mart is doing now along with their entire supply chain of 60,000 global manufacturers. And that brings us to the second big thing that happened on Oct. 10th - Wal Mart became a world leader and Washington became a market follower.

Mary also has an interview with Coral Rose , the entrepreneur that showed Wal-Mart that sustainability was smart business.


As excited as Mary, Sami,and Alison are about the potential positive worldwide impact that Wal-Mart can play , it is still Wal-Mart and difficult for these advocates to completely let their guards down.


From Sami, at Treehugger,

a huge question still remains – can a company that is based on selling
as much stuff as possible, as cheaply as possible, ever be green? If
they use half as much energy to produce a T-short, but sell four times
as many, the environment will still suffer. This is a conundrum that
goes to the very heart of the sustainability debate, and one that
Wal-Mart does not have the answer to (to be fair, they don’t claim to
either). Ultimately, so much of being green on an individual level is
about buying less crap, and using what we have better. This author is
unlikely to be shopping at Wal-Mart any time soon, and tends to avoid
shopping as much as possible anyway. Nevertheless, we don’t see a
collapse of our capitalist system coming any time soon (and we’re not
sure we’d welcome it when it came), so we see any efforts by a company
as large as Wal-Mart to make things better, greener and and with better
conditions for its workers and those of its suppliers as a very, very
good thing.

And from Mary Hunt,

Many say that what they are doing is just to off set their bad
press. It's working. Capitalism / consumption got us into the mess and
Capitalism / consumption will have to get us out. Markets create
tipping points.

The difference between a PR campaign and the real deal, however,
rests in standards. Wal Mart can ask and get those standards met.
That's market clout used for global good - and the women will be
watching...

Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness-