Wal-Mart believes that being an efficient and profitable business can go hand-in-hand with being a good steward of the environment. Its mission hasn't changed: helping more than 176 million shoppers every week save money and live better. It does so by offering products that are high quality, affordable, ethically sourced, and environmentally friendly.
In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart executives realized the company could do more for the environment and the communities it serves. As such, Wal-Mart president and CEO Lee Scott announced three sustainability goals for the company: to be supplied by 100 percent renewable energy, to create zero waste, and to sell products that sustain the earth's resources and the environment.
Wal-Mart believes that being an efficient and profitable business can go hand-in-hand with being a good steward of the environment.
Sustainability 360 was created to help meet those goals. The new approach focuses a sustainable lens at the entire company: its customer base, supply chain, associates, and products.
Sustainability 360
The Sustainability 360 plan includes 13 sustainable value networks, each focusing on a specific area of business, such as buildings, food, packaging, and transportation. The networks are built to identify and develop meaningful changes and include voices of Wal-Mart's associates, environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), suppliers, scholars, and government leaders. This collaborative method has helped Wal-Mart approach sustainability from a new angle, while finding value in places the company never imagined possible.
The sustainable value networks affect Wal-Mart's entire supply chain: they look at the company's global footprint and determine where waste can be reduced and efficiency increased.
The Packaging Network
One of Wal-Mart's thirteen sustainable values networks deals with packaging, an obvious component of every product-it draws attention, emphasizes the brand, and provides product information. The packaging network set a goal to reduce packaging in the Wal-Mart supply chain by 5 percent come 2013. Reaching that goal would prevent 660,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, a feat equal to taking roughly 200,000 trucks off the road every year. It would also save the company more than $3.4 billion.
Wal-Mart's suppliers are also catching on: after all, a reduction in their packaging can also save them money. General Mills is a leading example of the changes: straightening its Hamburger Helper noodles meant the product could lie flatter in the box. This, in turn, allowed General Mills to reduce the size of those boxes. The move saved nearly 900,000 pounds of paper fiber every year, reduced the company's greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent, took 500 trucks off the road and increased the number of Hamburger Helper boxes on Wal-Mart shelves by 20 percent.
This collaborative method has helped Wal-Mart approach sustainability from a new angle, while finding value in places the company never imagined possible.
Packaging changes are also influencing Wal-Mart's supply decisions. A few years ago, the company partnered with Unilever to reduce the packaging of the latter's "all" laundry detergent. Shortly thereafter, Unilever unveiled "all small & mighty," a three-times concentrated detergent capable of washing as much laundry as a 100-oz. bottle of regular detergent. Other suppliers quickly followed suit. Come May 2008, Wal-Mart will only stock concentrated liquid laundry detergent on its shelves. Making this change will reduce water consumption by 400 million gallons and save more