July 17, 2009
By Andrea Chang from The Los Angeles Times
If they green it, will we shop?
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. officially unveiled its widely rumored plan Thursday to slap "eco-ratings" on the hundreds of thousands of products in its stores. The world's largest retailer is betting that shoppers increasingly will care how green their purchases are -- and maybe even pay more for environmentally friendly merchandise.
The green ratings will take years to show up on the chain's shelves.
In the first phase of its three-part initiative, the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant will ask its more than 100,000 suppliers questions about their business practices, such as the amount of water they use in producing items and the locations of their factories. The goal is to develop a green index for Wal-Mart products similar to the nutrition label found on the packaging for food products.
"Customers want products that are more efficient, that last longer and perform better," Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke said in a statement. "And increasingly they want information about the entire life cycle of a product so they can feel good about buying it. . . . We do not see this as a trend that will fade."
Experts have said the ambitious program, details of which had been trickling out for days on the Web, probably will spur suppliers to redesign products to reduce their environmental impact and improve their scores. And that could cause broad changes in manufacturing.
Many of Wal-Mart's suppliers already have taken their own steps to become more eco-friendly.
At Levi Strauss & Co., Michael Kobori, vice president of social and environmental sustainability, said the jeans maker has set water-quality standards for its suppliers and now recommends that its jeans be washed in cold water to save energy.
Kobori said the San Francisco company was pleased with Wal-Mart's new initiative and called it the next logical step to improve the industry.
"It sends the right signal to the marketplace and the right signal to the supply chain that sustainability is important," he said. "We hope it changes the game."
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well, good ole Wally World has recently presented millions of consumers with their new effort to go with the times, ride the fad waves and appear to "do the right thing" by “going green”.
ReplyDeleteBUT Wal-Mart, although it began as a wholesome American retail store near the Ozark Mountains, it now represents "everything wrong" with our American economy.
It is the epitome of our wasteful economy. Wal-Mart offers garden tools and appliances at a prices so low that the American consumer can buy just about anything, use the crap out of it and when it breaks a year later, you can easily afford to go out and buy a new one, dumping the first one off at the landfill on the way, of course. I mean hell, its way cheaper than trying to fix anything.
What about American-made, fair-trade products? The opportunity to support Americans and American made products is made almost impossible at Wal-Mart as everything you buy has been outsourced to China and countries that employ children as disgustingly low wages so that Americans can get their low prices. Even the need for Americans to support American products has been drastically increasing with recent times.
What about the working conditions of Wal-Mart? Remember the lawsuits of those underpaid, overworked and working full days without breaks? Wal-Mart pays their full-time employees about 20 % less than the national average and they offer insurance to less than half of their 1.3 million employees. Not to mention that Wal-Mart employs illegal immigrants and has violated pretty much every child labor law that exists.
What about our local community? Wal-Mart has moved into every state and alongside every highway to put small retailers and Mom and Pops “Out of Business” to forever change the landscape of small town America, spreading their webs…
Educate yourself and others about where you shop and don’t support the wolf in sheep’s clothes.
I consider myself an environmentalist and I certainly support the efforts made by big business to “go green” but Wal-Mart would have to change its ethics entirely followed by a long list of its current operations and policy in order for me to even think of stepping in the place.
I lived in an area where Wal-Mart was the “most convenient” and “cheapest” and it tempted everyone in that “its so close” radius regardless of their age, race, gender and economic status. It does not discriminate and it has become part of many American household rituals, even though it is the very type of business model that is in every way “wrong”. It will not disappear in my lifetime; Wal-Mart has made buying certain items possible for certain households and we as Americans sure like our things. We as Americans will have to do a whole lot of changing first before this corporate America-fad goes by the wayside. But keep in mind your purchasing choices are in effect a vote to what you want for your community.
I challenge you to think of our current economic and environmental condition or state in a holistic manner and base your purchases on the best for the whole.
when i say i challenge you I challenge everyone. even small commitments within your small community can make change happen!
ReplyDeleteI am a part of a group who ask people each year to make a commitment to the earth and the commitments are as simple as ‘I will use less toilet paper’ or ‘I will refuse plastic bags’ or they are beautiful works of art in which the message is to plant more trees or preserve land for our children to enjoy. This year a young boy wrote, “I will not buy anything that i cannot fix”. I thought that was pretty awesome for a young boy to commit to and it certainly instilled a little more hope.
What if we all bought hearty, American-made (when appropriate of course as there are German, Denmark, Switzerland and other countries in some cases have the superior product) tools that will last a life-time (or two) and we bought appliances that are not only energy efficient but that will also last and could be repaired? And what if we all supported LOCAL????!!!! and even mores o, local businesses that are going green!
I could go on…but I stop here and I hope that everyone takes time to educate themselves before supporting corporations based on the lasted “right thing to do”.
Thank you
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