Today is Earth Day -- a reminder to us all that we need to make an effort to treat the planet we live on with care and respect. Maybe a day of eco-awareness will lead to some permanent habits for many of us. Even a first step like recycling glass and plastic products would be immensely helpful if the habit could be started by millions of American consumers. What else can you do, though?Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) issued a statement yesterday to reinforce the impact it's having on the environment due to consumers who are making more eco-aware purchases every day. Wal-Mart's "Live Better" index -- which tracks the consumer purchasing adoption rate of certain eco-products like energy-saving lightbulbs -- increased 66% this year alone compared to 2007. The index tracks five eco-product categories that are appearing in the shopping carts more and more among the retailer's 200 million yearly shoppers.
A few examples of categories in Wal-Mart's Live Better index include concentrated laundry detergent, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and organic milk. Sales of these items were tracked against normal, non eco-friendly items in the same category to help create the Live Better index, as customers make the conscious decision to purchase them (even at higher prices in most cases) compared to normal product in each category. Since April 2007, the retailer demonstrated that increased adoption of organic milk rose 37%, while compact fluorescent lightbulbs went up in consumer adoption to 47%.
Is Wal-Mart becoming a leader of promoting eco-friendly products? Being the world's largest retailer and all, anything it does to make these products more available to its shoppers can have an enormous impact. On Earth Day, it's good to see that impact being demonstrated.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-22-2008 @ 5:29PM
rowdy said...
I started buying energy efficient bulbs when Wal-Mart first started selling them. I have put them in all my family's houses(4) where applicable. All of them are still burning but I don't know how much money we save rater I just want to do my part to go green where I can. I hope all America will join me.Thanks Brian for your good words for Wal-Mart lately.
RoudMan
4-23-2008 @ 12:34AM
JP said...
Still love WMT. What a great company. And the P/E is still way cheap. With their stores in Latin America, and global expansion, they'll make nice cash overseas.
And in a recession, they still sell staples, and cheaper than anybody else. This bodes well for the cost-conscious, inflation-pinched US customer. If I was pulled one way and the other between WMT and TGT, I'd tell TGT to let go.
6-16-2008 @ 10:38PM
madmilker said...
quote***In China, as elsewhere, we follow the Wal-Mart tradition of building our business one store and one customer at a time. We strive to provide our customers with friendly service and a wide selection of quality products at Every Day Low Prices. With each Wal-Mart store we bring advanced retail know-how to the local market. By fostering a healthy, competitive environment, we hope to constantly improve our business operations and customer service in order to contribute to the prosperity of the local economy.
Wal-Mart firmly believes in local procurement. We recognize that by purchasing quality products, we can generate more job opportunities, support local manufacturing and boost economic development. Over 95% of the merchandise in our stores in China is sourced locally. We have established partnerships with nearly 20,000 suppliers in China. At Wal-Mart, we always work with our suppliers to grow together. In August 2007, Wal-Mart once again secured the top spot of the 2007 Supplier Satisfaction Survey conducted by Business Information of Shanghai. Additionally, Wal-Mart directly exports about US$9 billion from China every year. The export volume by third party suppliers is also estimated to be over US$9 billion.***end quote!
Now! if there be 182 country's making items for the world to buy and they have only 5% of the pie in China...duh! This company makes the nice people of China support their currency(yuan) by keeping it in their country working for the people there.... but with the "yuan" going up in value and the US dollar going down...all the foreign items that the American consumer buys thinking it is cheap has went up in price. People...its all about the currency and to keep a currency strong you got to keep it floating around the country you live in so it can work for you. For the past 12 years all them US dollars are being shipped overseas to a foreign bank and with the American worker not making anything for the foreigner to buy the "we the people" have to turn to the "second" largest employer in America(Uncle Sam) to sell "we the people" debt in order to get all them dollars back! 50 years ago a foreigner would had given their left nut for a US dollar or a Hershey's chocolate bar and today the same foreigner has got Uncle Sam and the American consumer by both all the while Hershey is moving the chocolate factory to Mexico. Wakeup! America and think "MADE IN AMERICA" and put the word Washington back in D. C.....Washington had been reelected unanimously in 1792. His decision not to seek a third term established a tradition that is now embedded in the 22d Amendment of the Constitution. Read his Farewell Address of Sept. 17, 1796 and think American made for a change.