Wal-Mart’s tag-line and purpose is: “Save Money. Live Better.” Their commercials paint a picture of happy employees and little bouncy, bright smiley faces alongside thrilled customers. However, the public has been made painstakingly aware of their poor business practices over the recent years. They employ cheap sweatshop labor, have weak environmental standards – and for those of you who have seen: “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” know that they treat their employees and community members in a manner that has been anything but kosher.

This past July, Wal-Mart announced that they were creating a sustainability index that surveys their 100,000+ suppliers world-wide, which rates each product’s sustainability on 4 different levels. They aim to reduce packaging by 5% by the year 2013. Their sustainability index is a follow-up to their package scorecard released in 2006, which was created to assist buyers in making an informed purchase with regard to product packaging.

At first glance, this seems so oxymoronic! Here’s a company whose entire business model is dominated by negligence and a lack of concern for consequences – a company who sells HUGE amounts of low-cost items shipped from ALL over the world in GIANT energy-sucking stores, trying to convince us of their green agenda.

Well, let’s take a deeper look at this. With $400 Billion in sales (for the 2009 fiscal year), greening their supply chain could make an enormous difference for the planet.

What are the basics of the program?

Every company that sells products to Wal-Mart will have to disclose information about their carbon footprint and sustainable practices (or lack thereof). The companies will be rated on the following 4 areas:

1. Energy & Climate: Do they measure their greenhouse gas emissions? Do they report to the Carbon Disclosure Project? And do they set out to better their company in this realm?
2. Material Efficiency: How much solid waste gets produced during production? Water use? Do they have low-packaging and high-quality?
3. Natural Resources: Have they addressed environmental compliance? Employee safety? Product Safety? Have they publicly established sustainable purchasing guidelines for their own direct supply line?
4. People and Community: Are they aware of each facility that is involved in producing their products? Do they evaluate the quality and capacity of a manufacturer prior to working with them? Do they invest in the community around them?

After each company answers various questions about their carbon footprint, Wal-Mart plans to have independent scientists and academics analyze their findings. This will allow for the creation of the ranking system that Wal-Mart intends to utilize.

Essentially, every shopper will have the ability to purchase products based on how Wal-Mart decides to rank them. Providing that Wal-Mart actually conducts legitimate research, this could have a vast trickle-down effect on other large retailers in the future and it has the potential to shift the entire market.

The idea is fabulous, but when enmeshed with all of Wal-Mart’s other business practices, will it actually make Wal-Mart a “Green,” “Sustainable,” “Eco-Conscious” retailer? Will it alter the way they run the rest of their company? I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the program pans out.

What do you think? Are Wal-Mart’s intentions genuine or is it just another case of greenwashing?

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