Walmart's Sustainability Index

Just got a blog-feed from Joel Makower at Greenbuzz.com that discusses Walmart's newest green initiative, the "Sutainability Index." You can find the full post here: The Hype and the Reality(Makower). Essentially, Walmart is setting the stage for measuring suppliers against a number of sustainability metrics. As Makower points out, it's the first step in what could become a very ambitious initiative, but right now it is still in its early stages. We likely won't see very much positive consumer-facing effects from this right now, and it may be tempting to call it greenwashing, but I agree with Makower that it's really too early to judge Walmart and that this initiative is shaping up to be much more than just greenwashing.

Walmart and other large multi-nationals get a lot of crap for they way they conduct business and for their past practices. Much of this is not un-deserved. Companies have for too long worked by pillaging the natural world for short term profits. However, the solutions from the radical end of the spectrum is to just get rid of these companies. I think this is also short-sighted and unrealistic. Our economic systems are set up in a way to encourage the growth of companies such as these, and even if Walmart or McDonalds were to disappear tomorrow, other companies would spring into their place and do the same things they do.

Instead, I think we have to support, encourage, cajole, and pressure these companies to make the types of changes that Walmart has been making. While I would love to see radical reform and changes to the way we consume (and admittedly, this would completely destroy Walmart and its entire business) I don't think this will happen anytime soon. Perhaps the answer then, is to push Walmart into changing their business themselves, morphing into something that little resembles what they are now, and can through their reach and their influence, actually change how consumers thing. Imagine, if Walmart could convince 50% of their customers that using plastic bags are bad..... imagine the ramifications of that.

Thus, I think this initiative should be viewed positively, although with a healthy dose of skepticism. That skepticism shouldn't lead to outright dismissal of the Sustainability Index however - it should lead to monitoring and accountability. Walmart has shown a very commendable penchant to engage some of the leading environmentalists and environmental policy makers around in order to help drive their sustainability initiatives. We should acknowledge this and utilize this openness to push the company further forward.

One final note - Makower highlights what might be the most interesting and important aspect of this program at the end of his post too. Walmart is considering pushing for open-source databases to manage and share the information they collect, allowing both consumers and other companies to analyze the companies that are making their products. Greater access to information can only be a good thing. Walmart's openness to not owning this whole process and set of metrics is also promising. Let's see how this develops.

Walmart, like the US, is a huge ship.. it will take a long time to turn them, but it is possible. This is a step in the right direction, and while I hate to hold up Walmart pom-poms, I'm going to be a cheerleader here and say "good for you Walmart."