Those who can, do. Those who can’t, market.

Hot on the heels of a report in which Wal-Mart advocates against clearer guidelines for environmental marketing, the Arkansas Morning News reports the megaretailer is telling its suppliers increase their environmental marketing. Wal-Mart’s “green” initiative is part of the company’s attempt to improve its reputation, and apparently the company just can’t get enough of it. Rather than telling its suppliers to source responsibly or focus on reducing carbon emissions, Wal-Mart is telling them to hire a decent ad agency and slap a fresh coat of green paint on everything they sell.

The point of this marketing push, as one Wal-Mart exec explained to a crowd of 250 suppliers, is not to improve Wal-Mart’s environmental impact. Rather, it’s to convince shoppers that Wal-Mart cares about the environment: whether that statement is actually true seems to be beside the point. The irony here is that this kind of behavior will ultimately make Wal-Mart’s green marketing fail. Consumers remain distrustful of Wal-Mart’s environmental claims, and actions like this are precisely why. In fact, Wal-Mart seems guilty of several of the “six sins of greenwashing,” which appear at the end of the article. This initiative might just be Wal-Mart’s way of atoning for its sins without actually changing its behavior.

• Hidden trade off - Does the product focus only on one or two environmental issues while ignoring other important issues?
• No proof - Does the product offer evidence of its claim, either on the package or through the company Web site?
• Vagueness - What does environmentally friendly really mean?
• Irrelevance - Claiming something is “CFC-free” is nice, but they were banned 30 years ago.
• Fibbing - Can anyone else back up the claim?
• Lesser of two evils - Is organic tobacco really a green product?

Source: TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc.

Wal-Mart Details Green Marketing To Suppliers [NW Arkansas Morning News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. doesn’t just want sustainable products from its suppliers, it wants them complete with a story to tell customers. Rand Waddoups, senior director of corporate strategy and sustainable development, on Thursday told more than 250 suppliers that Wal-Mart had devised a clearer strategy on its sustainability marketing.

The plan focuses on four concepts that Wal-Mart wants to promote - waste improvement and recycling, natural resources, energy and social or community impact.

“We need to fill the pipeline with products,” Waddoups said. “Not only do we need more innovative products, but we need to be able to tell a story around that product.”

Wal-Mart sent out emails to all buyers last week giving them an Aug. 18 deadline to submit “green” products that meet the criteria. Products selected will get a major promotion during Wal-Mart’s 2009 “Earth Month” marketing campaign.

Waddoups said the selection process would center on marketing potential, sustainability impact and business relevance.

“In our April campaign, we found a few products where customers totally didn’t get it, didn’t care,” Waddoups said during a Doing Business in Bentonville Speaker Series event at the Clarion Hotel. “We were pleased overall with the campaign, but we want to make sure we do this better next year.”

Apparently some claims to Earth-friendliness were lost on consumers when Wal-Mart last April promoted more than 50 products, including Coca-Cola branded T-shirts made from recycled plastic bottles and compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Wal-Mart wants to make sure customers understand and care about the environmental impact.

Try going all-solar like SunChips did at one of its manufacturing plants in Modesto, Calif., or innovating with a whole new product like Majestic Rubber Mulch. The stuff is made from recycled tires from Wal-Mart stores.

“We can’t even keep it in stock it’s selling so well,” Waddoups said.

Wal-Mart is also testing square milk jugs in some 200 Sam’s Club stores. The shape fits more into a case, which means more in a truck, which means fewer trucks on the roads.

That’s the kind of stuff Wal-Mart wants from suppliers, Waddoups said.

“We feel very strongly that there is nothing we can do that will be more successful and more impactful than the potential that’s in this room, and those products at our stores,” he added.

It’s not always easy.

Some suppliers are looking to sustainability experts for help in devising new products that meet Wal-Mart’s goals.

Novozymes, a Denmark-based bioinnovation company, has helped clients like Proctor & Gamble, Unilever and Cargill. The company has pioneered work in production of industrial enzymes and microorganisms, and helped Proctor & Gamble develop its cold water formula.

“It doesn’t make sense to create a sustainable product you can’t sell,” said Claus Stig Pedersen, head of sustainability development at Novozymes.

Pedersen and about a dozen staff from its domestic and international offices came to Bentonville for the event to spend time with suppliers and show how enzymes could be used to improve products.

The goal is to help suppliers design sustainable products without falling into what is commonly referred to as “greenwashing.”

Scot Case, vice president of Terra Choice Marketing, said consumers are growing very suspicious of green labels.

His company in 2007 went to six major retailers and recorded more than 1,000 products with claims to Earth-friendliness. All but one claimed some sort of unsubstantiated environmental advantage, and he advised seeing third party certification to avoid it.

“Wal-Mart is taking this stuff very seriously,” Case said. “They have set serious goals. Our challenge now is, how can we help them meet their goals?”

Waddoups acknowledged that with all Wal-Mart’s talk about sustainability, the company had failed to provide suppliers with critical information - like what it considers a sustainable product - and support in developing those products.

“We’re just now developing what it all means,” he said.

So is the Federal Trade Commission. It is currently revising its rules on environmental marketing claims.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, August 08, 2008