Walmart- i kinda got carried away

Walmart is a company of strong paradox. Whatever opinions it evokes, they are probably strong. On one hand it epitomizes American mass corporate culture that stymies creativity and small businesses. During the late 90s it was an easy target for the anti-globalization market: a lucrative business producing billions for a select few and dumping its factories and human rights and environmental abuses in poor countries.

On the other hand, it’s provides cheap goods for lower income Americans. And most recently, it’s being hailed as a model for green business. Here are the its two most important claims to greenness researched on their website (http://walmart.triaddigital.com/Sustainability.aspx and http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/):

1. environmentally friendly products: I went on their website and investigated their eco-friendly production section. They divide their products up into apparel (they offer organic cotton), home (more organic cotton), baby (reusable cloth diapers, biodegradable toilet paper, endangered species butterfly stroller), energy efficient appliances, electronics & entertainment (energy efficient stuff, Planet Earth!), and garden & patio (sustainably harvested wood). Ok so none of these products seem particularly innovative, but then again with Walmart’s target clientele (generally more concerned with saving a buck than saving the Earth), I want to say it’s great how they are bringing the Earth into the consumer picture by advertising the eco-friendliness of their products. In the end though, I think it’s more appropriate to celebrate that consumers are demanding these products and making it more economic for companies like Walmart to carry these products. In other words, it’s a sign of a good consumer trend, but there is nothing truly innovative going on here.

2. Reducing energy and pollutants: There are two main avenues through which Walmart is seeking to reduce energy. The first is by reducing emissions of its truck fleet through a number of measures. They are attacking this with more efficient trucks and even getting involved with projects to develop cleaner engines that run off alternative energy sources. The second is by building sustainable buildings. Now I was pretty impressed with what they are doing in this area. You expect fluorescent light bulbs? You got some catching up to do. In their experimental stores they have installed LED lights. They monitor their energy and water usage. Their long term goals are 100% renewable energy and zero waste. Yeah those may be fuzzy long term goals, but once the rhetoric is there, we have something to hold them accountable to. I think what they are doing in this area is truly innovative. I haven’t seen the numbers, but I feel like I don’t even need to. Everything they are doing here is to their benefit. A carbon tax is around the corner. Energy prices are skyrocketing. We’re going to have to adjust our infrastructure to alternative energies in the future anyway. So they are not only saving money now, but investing in their future.

Precisely because I was impressed by their claims (ie that they embodied all that was talked about in “The Death in Environmentalism,” that being sustainable is self-serving) I felt I needed to dig deeper into the changes Walmart is making.

First I wanted to check the validity of its claims. There are actually a number of groups that monitor Walmart and jump on it any opportunity they get (http://wakeupwalmart.com/ and http://walmartwatch.com/). Their main concerns regarding Walmart and the environment persist, but really only because of Walmarts shear size. Of course Walmart is going to have an enormous impact because it serves so many customers. However, I saw nothing on either website that made me question that Walmart’s initiatives are a good model for other corporations.

Second, I was curious about whether Walmart is greening as a response to trends in consumerism, whether it is narrowly defining itself as “green” (as in how environmental movements can narrowly and harmfully define themselves as “environmental”), or whether we are witnessing Walmart progress in a more holistic sense. There is an enormous article on Wikipedia about Walmart (well cited too). Basically, as I kind of expected, Walmart is progressing in a more holistic sense. The main reason I thought this would be so is because Walmart is #1 on the global Fortune 500. It is run by smart people. They aren’t ideologues, so they are free to take the best ideas they can find and use them to their interest.

This is evident in the way Walmart is trying to open its customer base to a up-scale liberal base, as opposed to its traditional low income, conservative customer base. Its rating by human rights groups have been climbing since 2000. It even elected to sell Brokeback Mountain in the face of anti-gay protests (http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/04/06/brokeback-walmart-protest.html).

I think this is a perfect illustration of what Adam Werbach was saying when he talked about environmentalists harming their cause by narrowly defining themselves as environmentalists. Walmart and other corporations were harming themselves by not considering how a little greening and progressing could help them. Walmart is tactfully drawing in a liberal base without isolating its conservative base. It is loudly exclaiming “Yes!” to the environment and gay rights, while still saying “yes” to its billions of dollars and family values. Key lesson: the value systems are not mutually exclusive and we only hurt our causes by closing door on other values.