The article in the url below gives a good indication of the extent to which Walmart’s sustainability drive is genuine:
“For years, Seventh Generation Inc. co-founder Jeffrey Hollender liked to say "hell would freeze over" before his company's environmentally friendly household products would be sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. He feels differently now. Starting next month, Seventh Generation staples, including laundry detergent, dish soap, all-purpose sprays and disinfectant wipes, will be sold in about 1,500 Wal-Mart stores. By September, other cleaners, diapers and baby wipes will be available on Walmart.com.”
The combination gives Seventh Generation the mainstream outlet it has been seeking and Walmart expanded access to the growing environmentally conscious household cleaning market:
“‘We're not just putting [Seventh Generation's] products on the shelf,’ says Al Dominguez, Wal-Mart's vice president of household chemicals and paper goods. ‘We want their help in developing a category that's more sustainable.’”
In general, Walmart has come a long way:
“Five years ago, the world's largest retailer by revenue began setting goals to reduce its energy consumption, cut waste and introduce more sustainable products. Last year, Wal-Mart introduced a program to screen chemical-based products for ingredients that could have harmful health or environmental effects. … Seventh Generation and Wal-Mart are both members of the Sustainability Consortium, a group of manufacturers, retailers, nongovernmental organizations and government officials that is developing tools and strategies to evaluate the environmental and social impacts of products' lifecycles. Wal-Mart plans to eventually incorporate the data into a sustainable product index, which it plans to make available to consumers.”
Ultimately, it is all about scale for a firm that wants to disseminate its message as widely as possible:
“‘At this point, we now believe that we can have a bigger impact by partnering with Wal-Mart than by shunning it,’ Mr. Hollender wrote.”
Take care
David
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Adversary's Clean Start With Wal-Mart
After Years Criticizing Retailer's Environmental Sins, Seventh Generation Now Partners on Efforts, Puts Products on Shelf
By ELLEN BYRON
WSJ
July 26, 2010
