“Look! Over there! At that shiny object!”
In a prime example of misdirection, Wal-Mart’s PR team came out yesterday proudly extolling the newly-energy-efficient truck fleet which the company claims will cut emissions significantly. Hooray for lower emissions! But there’s a fly on the windshield of this shiny new PR move: Wal-Mart still has not released the sustainability report that was supposed to come out almost a month ago. The reason for the delay? The company hadn’t realized how “complex” environmental-friendliness is. In addition, the company has failed to fulfill the vast majority of the 2005 promises to which this AP article alludes, including a promise to use more hybrid trucks, which emit even less CO2 than cleaned-up diesels. Whatever ovetures the company may make to going green, we want less spin, more action.
Wal-Mart Truck Fleet Rolls Fuel Savings [Associated Press via Forbes]
Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott laid out ambitious environmental goals in late 2005 as the world’s largest retailer sought to burnish its reputation against mounting criticism.
Nearing the two-year mark, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is still compiling a major report on how far it has come with the program overall, including reducing waste, using more renewable energy and stocking more green products.
But one division says it is already well under way to meet its goals. Wal-Mart’s fleet of about 7,200 semitractor-trailer trucks is already about 15 percent more fuel efficient and the company knows what changes it needs to make to meet a target of 25 percent by late next year.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, July 18 | 4 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Sucks Town Dry
A new Wal-Mart store can often seem like a blessing to rural communities, a concept bolstered by the company’s own PR efforts. However, many communities fail to take into account the myriad ways that Wal-Mart sucks money out of a local economy. In this case, that money is literally going down the drain. As stores like Wal-Mart use up the township’s water supply, families are seeing utility costs rise ten fold. Is this Wal-Mart’s idea of saving families money?
When New Building Dries Up Resources [New York Times]
Until five years ago, it seemed that the breakneck pace of development in Effingham County, a Savannah suburb in southeast Georgia, knew no limits.
But like other fast-growing areas across the country, Effingham had to learn that large-scale expansion often comes at a price. In the county’s case, it was the long-term integrity of the vast underground water supply that serves it as well as other major areas in the South.
“The prevalent mentality that natural resources have no end has come to an abrupt halt here,” said John A. Henry, chief executive of Effingham’s Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Authority. Because overuse of its wells could draw in saltwater, the county can no longer rely solely on the wells for business and residential use, he explained, and it has been buying water from Savannah for the last five years.
As a result, cities in the county have had to spend millions of dollars and expect to spend millions more to try to keep up with growth. Residents’ water bills have risen significantly, and yet, the growth continues.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, July 16 | 17 comments | Permalink
Gulf Restoration Network on Cypress Mulch
Wal-Mart gained a lot of press after Hurricane Katrina for helping victims of the disaster but it seems that Wal-Mart’s commitment to the area was short-lived. The Gulf Restoration Network, a “network of environmental, social justice, and citizens’ groups and individuals committed to restoring the Gulf of Mexico to an ecologically and biologically sustainable condition,” recently released this video exposing the fact that Wal-Mart and others use old growth cypress forests for mulch. Those trees, the video points out, are not only crucial to the local ecosystem but also help protect the Gulf Coast from disasters like Katrina.
Despite the fact that CEO Lee Scott admits “Environmental loss threatens the health of the natural systems we depend on,” the company continues to sell mulch from old-growth forests. Visit http://healthygulf.org to take action.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, July 16 | 2 comments | Permalink
A Wal-Mart Fourth of July
How will Wal-Mart celebrate this Fourth of July? The company that lauds its founder - an inspirational “self-made” man - has turned its back on the country.
In 1985, Sam Walton committed himself and his business to buying American made goods. His “Buy American” program promised:
“We cannot continue to be a solvent nation as long as we pursue this current accelerating direction. Our company is firmly committed to the philosophy by buying everything possible from suppliers who manufacture their products in the United States.”
Wal-Mart has since abandoned that policy, sourcing the vast majority of its products from overseas. 70% of the company’s goods come from China alone. This means lost jobs for Americans. For every store Wal-Mart opened in America, 336 jobs were lost to China. This is close to 60,000 jobs every single year that Wal-Mart sends overseas.
This July 4th, we’re thinking about equality in America. We’re thinking about how all Americans are equal under the law - but Wal-Mart is thinking how that might cost them. Wal-Mart is defending itself in the largest workplace class action suit in US history. Nearly 2 million women are suing, saying that they were treated unfairly, were paid less and not given promotions as often as men. This kind of treatment is not only illegal - it violates the rights we celebrate on July 4th and every day.
Wal-Mart takes advantage of Uncle Sam by exploiting tax loopholes, abandoning employees to rely on state-provided medical coverage and keeping able workers at part-time hours. Is this the prosperity the founding fathers had in mind in 1776?
From sea to shining sea? Not if Wal-Mart has anything to say about it. Even though the company touts its environmental steps forward, little has actually been accomplished and there is still much more to do. Perhaps that’s why Wal-Mart still hasn’t released its overdue sustainable values network report it promised this spring.
Wal-Mart keeps the American Dream out of reach for thousands of people - not only its employees, but in the communities it builds in, the countries it sources from and ultimately the customers it claims to serve.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, July 03 | 60 comments | Permalink
MD Law Encourages Big Box Stores To Go Solar
Among the 191 new state laws that take effect in the state of Maryland today, the effects of one may not be seen for a few years. Make no mistake, however. Its sponsor believes the law could serve as a national model and could reduce the cost of electricity, as traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas become more expensive.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed Senate Bill 595, which modifies the state’s renewable energy requirement to include a minimum percentage of solar power, starting at 0.005 percent of retail electricity sales in 2008 and increasing to 2 percent of electricity sales by 2022. The law is designed to encourage the use of solar panels by big box stores such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Monday, July 02 | 5 comments | Permalink
Friday Blog Round Up: Food Comes In, Jobs Go Out
BAD: CHINA SHUTS DOWN FOOD FACTORIES
Wal-Mart sources 70% of its products - including food - from China. Think that peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich looks good? Even the Chinese government had to admit that the food coming out of these factories was unfit to eat.
When Big Factories Are Better [Chow.com]
The scare over tainted food products from China keeps getting, um, scarier. As the nation’s government admitted Wednesday, inspectors encountered 23,000 instances of food contamination involving 180 plants around China in the six months from December through May. Why the officials waited this long to come forward is just one of many troubling questions raised by this whole affair, which started with tainted wheat gluten in pet food several months back.
This time around, the focus is on a wide array of products including flour, candy, biscuits, seafood, and bean curd, Forbes reports; those and other foods were found to contain dangerous chemical additives like petroleum by-products, formaldehyde, and a carcinogenic green fabric dye. “It was unclear whether any of the cases involved food made for export,” according to Forbes.
Investigations Lead to the Shutdown of 180 Chinese Food Factories [Sustainable Table]
Chinese officials reported yesterday that after six months of intensive investigations, 180 food were forced to shut down and 37 factories had their licenses revoked after investigators found illegal ingredients being added to food products. The ingredients included “mineral oils derived from the processing of petroleum, paraffin, formaldehyde and the carcinogenic malachite green, a synthetic dye used to color fabrics”...Readers will remember that China’s food trouble began back in March, when Chinese wheat gluten tainted with melamine was found to be the pet food ingredient culpable for killing pets around the US, and since then, country-of-origin labeling (COOL) has been in the news again. Also in March, Food & Water Watch released the results of a survey that revealed that 82% of American support mandatory country-of-origin labeling.
WORSE: FDA BANS SEAFOOD IMPORTS FROM CHINA
In a separate, food-from-China-is-dangerous turn of events, the FDA banned five types of fish from being imported to the U.S. from China. Shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace might not sound like everyday fare, but the U.S. bought $1.2 billion worth of seafood from China last year and these fish are among its top exports. Don’t worry - the fish already in the U.S. poses no imminent threat. Rather, the death you will experience from eating these fish will be long and painful.
FDA warning on Chinese fish highlights problems with inspections [Consumer Reports]
The FDA repeatedly found that farm-raised seafood from China contained antimicrobial agents not approved for use here: nitrofuran, malachite green, gentian violet and fluoroquinolone. The first three have been linked to cancer in laboratory animals; the last may increase antibiotic resistance.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, June 29 | 5 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Inducted in to the Corporate Hall of Shame
Corporate Accountability International announced today three new inductees into their Corporate Hall of Shame. With 2,882 votes, Wal-Mart was in the top three and thus gained entry to this select group. Corporate Accountability International calls on Wal-Mart to adopt higherstandards of political conduct (PDF), including being more transparent about political donations and government subsidies (PDF).
Wal-Mart: Low Prices, Lower Ethics
The world’s largest retailer generates nearly a billion dollars per day in sales. In fact, 2.5 cents of every dollar spent in the United States passes through a Wal-Mart cash register. But the employees who run those cash registers, stock the shelves, and clean the floors aren’t sharing in the corporate wealth. Most of the retail giant’s workers have an annual income close to the poverty line. Fewer than half are covered by the corporation’s health plan. And now Wal-Mart is the subject of the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history, involving 1.2 million women who are current or former employees. Meanwhile, Congressional investigators estimate that each Wal-Mart store receives nearly half a million dollars a year in government subsidies. (Wal-Mart has padded its bottom line with more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks and other public subsidies, including deals that allow them to use sales taxes paid by some store customers to pay for improvements to the store property.)
More on the announcement from Tom Paine:
Corporate Accountability International today announced that Exxon, Halliburton and Wal-Mart are the three newly elected inductees to its Corporate Hall of Shame. The membership organization, which wages winning campaigns against irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions, opened online voting in May with five other potential inductees: Coke, Ford, Kimberly-Clark, Merck and Nestlé. Corporations were nominated for a variety of factors, including documented abuses that harm people and the environment, political influence and interference, and public deception.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 28 | 35 comments | Permalink
China Shuts Down 180 Food Factories for Use of Illegal Ingredients
The Chinese government announced today that 180 food factories will be shut down for using illegal chemicals. Factories in China have been the source of multiple recalled products in recent months which one official admitted “are not isolated cases.” Wal-Mart is China’s eighth largest trading partner, and more than 70% of the goods for sale in a U.S. Wal-Mart store have been imported from China. What does China’s move mean for Wal-Mart? And what does Wal-Mart’s reliance on Chinese goods mean for American consumers?
China shuts 180 food factories for using illegal chemicals [Associated Press via CNN]
China has closed 180 food factories after inspectors found industrial chemicals being used in products from candy to seafood, state media said Wednesday.
The closures came amid a nationwide crackdown on shoddy and dangerous products launched in December that also uncovered use of recycled or expired food, the China Daily said.
Formaldehyde, illegal dyes, and industrial wax were found being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood, it said, citing Han Yi, an official with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which is responsible for food safety.
“These are not isolated cases,” Han, director of the administration’s quality control and inspection department, was quoted as saying.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, June 27 | 3 comments | Permalink
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