Wal-Mart Lobbies Against Carbon Offset Guidelines

Curbing carbon emissions is a crucial part of environmentalism, but its an issue which Wal-Mart has been slow to address. In 2005, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced plans to reduce Wal-Mart’s massive carbon footprint, with the ultimate goal of carbon neutrality from the company. Carbon offset programs – methods of shifting the burden of carbon elimination to a third-party – were an imperative part of that plan.

To better implement these carbon offset programs – and to avoid misleading marketing claims about the process – the Federal Trade Commission began work standardizing offsets and regulating the process. Wal-Mart, however, had other ideas about the process.

Herein lays the scandal: Despite the company’s “green” initiatives, Wal-Mart is actively lobbying against the clarification of offset guidelines. The company’s hypocritical stance on the issue came to light last week in a hearing of the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC is attempting to modernize the “Green Guides,” guidelines issued for corporations defining acceptable marketing claims regarding environmental products and initiatives. In response to the FTC’s solicitation of retailer comment to guide the process, Wal-Mart’s Director of Energy Regulation, Angela Beehler, expressed Wal-Mart’s firm opposition towards the clarified scope and definition of carbon offsets:

Wal-Mart’s Comments to U.S. Federal Trade Commission (PDF)

Although some may urge otherwise, the Commission should resist the temptation to define what constitutes an eligible offset or REC. Doing so would require the Commission to resolve highly technical environmental debates that are beyond its expertise…

The Commission should recognize that in the absence of a governmental definition or a widespread consensus about the precise contours of what constitutes a carbon offset or a REC, there may be multiple ways to establish a reasonable basis for such claims.

Beehler’s words reveal Wal-Mart refuses to endorse even a proper definition of a “carbon offset,” and it follows that the corporation is uninterested in the transparency necessary to ensure the legitimacy of its environmental claims.

Wal-Mart’s attempt to keep offsets guidelines vague shows the company is more interested in marketing potential than actual environmental change. Unspecific standards would allow the retailer to ‘commit’ to carbon-neutrality, without providing much real documentation. A responsible, sustainable corporation would place the necessity of carbon-offset clarification and oversight in front of the bottom-line.

Consumer advocates maintain that corporations’ lack of objectivity hinder their ability to establish the marketing standards for true “green” objectives, and that the FTC must respond to greenwashing by establishing clearer guidelines. The imperative for proper clarification of environmental marketing claims has never been clearer, in light of the following comments provided to the FTC from Urvashi Rangan of Consumers Union:

Consumers Union Comments to U.S. Trade Commission (PDF)

Consumers Union believes that carbon offset and renewable energy terms that are made in association with marketing or product claims require scope and specific definition provided by the FTC.  Claims are already being made on products that are confusing, misleading and potentially deceptive. Companies that are investing in alternative energies while generating carbon from their own production line are making marketing and product claims of carbon neutrality or negativity, such as Figi bottled water being marketed as “carbon negative.”

As Rangan notes, absence of “scope and specific definition” enables corporations to utilize “deceptive” claims that hide the true cost of its own carbon output. Wal-Mart is perhaps one of the largest perpetrators of this ambiguity, and as the largest retail entity in the world, is benefiting from a system which doesn’t demand verification of carbon-neutrality claims.

Wal-Mart’s lobbying techniques serve as a reflection of its corporate apathy towards the peril of environmental degradation that threaten our times and our future. It is apparent that greenwashing has run amuck in Bentonville. 

Posted by Tony Calero on Tuesday, August 05, 2008

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