In an interesting eco-twist with the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stated yesterday that it will eliminate all laundry detergents from its shelves that are not packaged and sold in 'concentrated' form. In an effort to reduce waste and conserve natural resources, the company said that all U.S. Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Clubs would only sell concentrated detergent going forward, although a drop-dead date was not reported with the announcement.
After having strolled through Wal-Mart in the last 24 hours, I can say that much of the laundry detergent already sold by the retailer comes in concentrated form -- but then, there are many brands that are not. Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) stated that they will start distributing smaller detergent containers for concentrated liquid detergent this year. P&G's larger brands are Tide and Downy, among many others.
The move is not really a surprise by Wal-Mart, which has been on a green warpath this year. This summer, the retailer announced that it would only accept smaller packaging from many of its vendors, and created a complete set of guidelines to help those vendors get packaging to where there would be minimal waste after purchase.
In addition to selling and promoting a huge assortment of energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), the company is taking steps to cut back (or even eliminate) high gas usage by its trucking fleet. All of these measures are part of the company's "Sustainability 360" plan. The plan includes these initiatives: saving more than 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic and 125 million pounds of cardboard over the course of every year. Now, those are some large numbers.
Wal-Mart (WMT) gets greener
Posted Sep 27th 2007 6:20PM by Brian White
Filed under: Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-28-2007 @ 12:26AM
Inverstor Man said...
Hi Brian,
Glad to see you're still following Walmart. This green effort is a win-win. Saves Walmart money, while contributing to a better environment.
One would think the Walmart hating tree huggers would be pleased with this, but I bet many will pooh-pooh it because it will help the companies bottom line, and thus find the motivation distasteful to their palate.
But the truth is, if green initiatives don't help companies realize more profits, then most voluntary efforts made toward it will only be window dressing. Welcome to capitalism people.
That said, I believe there's financial benefit to be had in dedicating capital investment to green. Green may very well be the next boom industry. Gosh, poor green loving corporation haters, that's really going to hurt.
9-28-2007 @ 4:09AM
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9-28-2007 @ 4:13AM
Johnson1221 said...
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9-28-2007 @ 4:10AM
Johnson1221 said...
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9-28-2007 @ 2:39PM
Matt said...
Article titles like "WMT gets greener" and "Wal-Mart Steps Up Its Green Game" are misleading, if not preposterous.
I laud Wal-Mart's moves to be more sustainable but, in fact, it is simply becoming "less destructive." You can not "green" the armada of oil guzzling cargo ships that transport their goods from overseas, or the fleet of diesel trucks that move goods from distribution centers to the stores. the shipping fleet alone was responsible for 19 million pounds of carbon monoxide last year.
The average 24/hour Wal-Mart store uses 96.5 MBTU of energy every day. The same amount would power over a thousand typical homes.
Then Every Wal-Mart store is a miniature environmental disaster, that often bulldozes undeveloped land and brings environmental problems from parking lot runoff, noise and air pollution, traffic, litter, and on and on and on.
Look at it this way: Exxon Mobil started a paper recycling program at their offices in Beijing. Are they "green" now?
Brian, you can do better.