Wal-Mart flexes green muscles and scares light bulb makers

When I read about Wal-Mart Store's (NYSE:WMT) embrace of environmentally friendly light bulbs, I took a quick peak outside the window of my home office. To my surprise, the world as I know it didn't come to an end.

The problem I have with doing right by the environment (besides laziness) is that it's expensive and often requires government subsidies. That's what makes Wal-Mart's plans to sell compact fluorescent lights so interesting. These bulbs are eight times as costly as traditional incandescent bulbs but produce less greenhouse gasses. Wal-Mart wants to sell 100 million of the environmentally friendly light bulbs, which today make up 6 percent of the market, by 2008.

Wal-Mart's skeptical suppliers went along. After all, this is Wal-Mart, the last company any of them wants to annoy.

While Wal-Mart has increased sales of the greener lights, it's only one of many ambitious environmental goals which USA Today says includes reducing the amount of gas used by its trucking fleet, buying fish only from sustainable fisheries, as well as reducing sold waste and energy use at its 7,000 stores. USA Today says Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" got a standing ovation when it was shown at Wal-Mart's headquarters.

Wal-Mart's critics argue that this green effort is merely a PR stunt. Other groups who have fought the retailers on many issues for years seem to be surprised that Wal-Mart has embraced the environmental movement. There may be some spin with Wal-Mart's green push, but it will be interesting to see if the huge company can make a big difference in making environmentally-friendly technology more economically viable.