Wal-Mart’s Unsustainable Land Use

Lee Scott and Wal-Mart have recently revealed their “Sustainability 360” campaign that is meant to demonstrate that Wal-Mart is a “green” corporation. Much of the publicity is focused on Wal-Mart’s zero waste policy—a policy that had been adopted many of their competitors for over decade—sustainable products and energy conservation, be it with lighting in new stores or hybrid fleet vehicles.

While it is nice to see that Wal-Mart is taking small steps towards sustainability, Wal-Mart has not addressed the single issue that makes them one of the most environmentally unfriendly corporations in the world: the way they develop and site stores.

Wal-Mart’s “Sustainability 360” plan is more lip service to environmental sustainability than actual environmental sustainability, because Wal-Mart’s central business plan relies on a development strategy that is fundamentally unsustainable. Wal-Mart is still focusing on expanding their business through building large lot supercenters. Because Wal-Mart’s supercenters are incredibly land intensive, requiring at least 30 acres for the standard 200,000 Square Foot Unit, they are often built on agricultural or natural areas away well away from the central area of most towns.

Agricultural and natural areas are often referred to as “greenfields” and preserving these resources is considered central to both the agricultural preservation and environmental community. Wal-Mart frequently abandons and vacates many of their pre-existing stores which are often more centrally located in favor of building a new Wal-Mart supercenter.

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Posted by Research Team on Monday, February 05 | 3 comments | Permalink

Wal-Mart To Sell Your Family Electricity?

In October 2005, Lee Scott committed Wal-Mart (PDF) to a goal of using 100% renewable energy as part of the company’s “commitment to environmental sustainability.”

Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News reported that Wal-Mart had purchased a power company in Texas to sell electricity to itself—and potentially to you. Is this how Wal-Mart defines “renewable?”

According to the article, this move will save Wal-Mart $15 million a year in energy costs and will enable the company to eventually sell electricity to suppliers and customers directly. While scant mention of the company’s commitment to sourcing renewable energy is made, the fact remains that Wal-Mart simply bought a pre-existing power company to avoid paying the high energy bills that you and I pay every month, with little regard to environmental impact.  Once Wal-Mart builds the infrastructure to sell electricity to consumers on a large scale, will you have any choice but to cut a check to the company every month?

Wal-Mart’s energy strategy goes far beyond selling squiggly light bulbs. The world’s largest retailer could one day sell the electricity, too.

The company recently made big announcements about its environmental goals to sell 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs (the corkscrew ones) this year, shift to renewable energy, and install solar panels and windmills at some stores.

More quietly, Wal-Mart has created its own electricity company in Texas, called Texas Retail Energy, to supply its stores with cheap power bought at wholesale prices. This saves the world’s largest retailer about $15 million annually and gives the company total control over its utility bills.

Plus Wal-Mart now has the infrastructure to sell electricity to Texas consumers. That could change the game in a deregulated state where high prices have become a hot political issue.

  • Click here to learn more about Wal-Mart’s environmental policies.

Posted by Enviro. Team on Tuesday, January 30 | 13 comments | Permalink

A Politically Incorrect Fish Makes A Comeback

From the Wall Street Journal:

One of the most politically incorrect foods is about to get a big boost from the world’s largest retailer.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has been working to burnish its environmental credentials, says it will restore Chilean sea bass to its seafood counters in select markets in coming months. The retailer stopped carrying the fish in 2003 amid concerns that it was being overfished into extinction. Wal-Mart’s turnabout follows a decision by Whole Foods Market Inc. in October to sell Chilean sea bass for the first time since 1999.

It’s the latest twist in the extraordinary history of a fish that went from being an unwanted (and physically ugly) bycatch to a culinary delicacy to massively overfished in a decade. Some environmental activists are already criticizing Wal-Mart’s decision—a potentially difficult situation for the company, which has suffered public-relations missteps and is now engaged in a broad image campaign.

Both Wal-Mart and Whole Foods say they are putting Chilean sea bass back on their shelves because their supply comes from a single fishery near Antarctica that has been certified as sustainable by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council. But the certification is controversial, and critics say they are worried that seeing the fish in giant retailers will send a signal to consumers that the overfishing crisis has abated.

While the one certified fishery is well managed, says Gerry Leape of the National Environmental Trust, it produces only about a tenth of the total legal harvest. Elsewhere, overfishing and poaching remain rampant. “Wal-Mart has 175 million customers every week, so there won’t be enough,” says Mr. Leape. “One of the things we worry about is, what are they going to do when they need more?”

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Posted by Russ Fagaly on Monday, January 29 | 1 comments | Permalink

State Orders Wal-Mart To Pay Pesticide Fees

From KCRA-Sacramento, Calif:

A California state agency is hitting the nation’s largest retailer with more than $1 million in fines and fees.

A letter was recently sent to Wal-Mart, telling the company it must pay the state more than $1.2 million related to pesticides sold in California.

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation said Wal-Mart is refusing to pay fees on more than $57 million in sales. The state requires retailers to pay a 2-cent fee on every dollar of pesticides sold.

So what happens if Wal-Mart refuses to pay?

“We will have no alternative but to turn to the state attorney general’s office and they could file an unfair business practices complaint,” California Department of Pesticide Regulation spokesman Glen Brank said.

That would not be good for Wal-Mart.

The company is already under criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles.

That investigation alleges Wal-Mart is illegally shipping hazardous waste out of state to avoid environmental fees in California.

California representatives from Wal-Mart have not returned calls from KCRA 3 Investigates seeking comment.

Posted by Russ Fagaly on Tuesday, January 23 | 8 comments | Permalink

Organic? You Sure About That?

When Wal-Mart announced in March of last year that it would begin supporting more organic products, it was news that was supposed to shake up the retail world. Organic practices are better for the environment, organic food is healthier, and organic foods and products are supposed to be helping lure the more affluent shoppers away from competitors such as Target.

Well, while the wooing process continues, Wal-Mart might want to refresh its memory on exactly what “organic” means. Officials in Wisconsin have launched an investigation into Wal-Mart’s labeling practices, having received complaints that the retailer is misleading consumers by labeling non-organic products as being organic. The Cornucopia Institute, based in Wisconsin, first discovered the mislabeling at a store in Plano, Texas, and sent a letter to Bentonville. What started with that letter to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott last September became a formal complaint to the USDA in November when subsequent visits revealed that the problem remained.

Wal-Mart indifference and USDA inaction has now gotten state authorities involved, and Wisconsin has begun a consumer protection investigation. Two months after filing the USDA complaint, Cornucopia found alleged violations in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. America’s Dairyland is the first state to launch an investigation, but could others be far behind? Organics are becoming big business with the industry growing fifteen percent annually for the past five years, so stay tuned.

While the investigation is ongoing, Wal-Mart spokesperson Karen Burk has pointed out that, “The USDA certification label is featured on the packaging of the organic selections we offer for further customer information and verification.” Meanwhile, unintentional or not, Wal-Mart might think about taking its own advice, and start checking those labels.

  • Click here to visit the Cornucopia Institute.
  • Click here to learn more about Wal-Mart’s environmental policies.

Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, January 23 | 0 comments | Permalink

Is Wal-Mart Mislabeling Organics?

From the Springdale (Ark.) Morning News:

The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based activist group, has filed a legal complaint against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for allegedly mislabeling non-organic products as being certified organic in some of its stores.

The Institute has filed the complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Institute spokesman Mark Kastel said his organization filed the complaint after Wal-Mart President and CEO Lee Scott did not respond to a letter sent by the group.

But Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burke said the issue boiled down to one of misplaced signs.

“We believe it’s an isolated incident if one of those organic tags should accidentally shift in front of the wrong item, and this is what the issue is about,” she said.

Wal-Mart is working on the problem at the stores where the incidents took place, Burke said.

Kastel countered, however, that the mislabeling was a “systematic problem” with Wal-Mart and not just an isolated incident.

“This is no mom and pop store. This is happening all over (Wal-Mart) stores across the country,” he said.

The Cornucopia Institute earlier filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture after receiving no response to its letter to Scott, Kaste said. The organization followed up with a complaint to the state of Wisconsin after finding out that a USDA investigation could take between one and two years, he said.

From Business Week:

Now there are questions about whether “the Wal-Mart price” might come at a cost to organic foods. State officials in Wisconsin have launched an investigation into the retailer’s practices after complaints that Wal-Mart may be misleading consumers. A central question is whether signs on store shelves and banners above the shelves describe foods as “organic,” while the foods nearby do not qualify for the label, under federal guidelines. “We are beginning an investigation that will look into signage and whether it can be considered misleading,” says Jim Rabbitt, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection in Madison. The bureau plans to examine the practices of Wal-Mart and other retailers for 30 to 60 days to determine how big an issue this is.

The U.S. Agriculture Dept. is reviewing a complaint about Wal-Mart’s practices from the same watchdog group that notified Wisconsin officials. The USDA has not decided whether to pursue its own investigation. “We are seeking more information to determine what action should be taken,” says Joan Schaffer, spokeswoman for the national organic program at the USDA.

  • Click here to read “Organic Fraud: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Accused of Widespread Distortion.”
  • Click here to read more from the Cornucopia Institute.
  • Click here to learn more about Wal-Mart’s environmental policies.

Posted by Russ Fagaly on Wednesday, January 17 | 0 comments | Permalink

Filthy Wal-Mart: A Photo Essay

An intrepid photographer in South Carolina went to Wal-Mart and cataloged what he saw.

Posted by Russ Fagaly on Tuesday, January 16 | 40 comments | Permalink

Wal-Mart and “Zero Waste”

In October 2005, Lee Scott committed Wal-Mart to using “zero waste” as one of his three aspirational goals for the company’s environmental sustainability program.  Where is the the company now?

Fortune Magazine has an article that portrays Wal-Mart’s proclaimed commitment to moving its operations towards achieving zero waste.  As we have said before, this is a commendable goal.  However, Wal-Mart must to do far more than placing anecdotal tidbits about recycling in magazine articles to be a sustainable company. 

With regard to the environment specifically, Wal-Mart must do more to address the harm its stores cause to wetlands, open space and communities at large by building all new stores in an environmentally sustainable manner.  As has often been the case, the Fortune article cites “experimental green store in Aurora, Co.” as an example of Wal-Mart’s environmental innovation; however, it fails to mention that Wal-Mart has opened only two green stores out of nearly 4,000 nationwide and that the environmental harm those stores cause has been disastrous to communities.

Further, Wal-Mart must do more than provide quotes about the economic benefit of waste reduction and anecdotes about recycling fruit in experimental stores.  The company must fully disclose the extent and manner of its recycling operations to independent third-party validators for the process and results to be valid.

Finally, Wal-Mart must also realize that sustainability can only be achieved by addressing worker’s conditions, wages and benefits throughout the supply chain.  Without a healthy and productive workforce, none of the company’s operations--environmental or otherwise--are sustainable.

NEW YORK (Fortune)—Wal-Mart and the city of San Francisco do not have much in common, but there is this—both are working to achieve zero waste.

They aren’t alone. The Australian territory of Canberra, a third of local governments in New Zealand, the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, a bunch of small towns in California, and Carrboro, N.C., ("Paris of the Piedmont") all have embraced a goal of zero waste.

But what is zero waste? It’s just what it sounds like—the idea that we can design, produce, consume and recycle products without throwing anything away. It’s the idea that industry should mimic nature, so that, as the writer Joel Makower put it, “one species’ detritus is another’s pantry.”

Zero waste may sound like a crazy `dream, but you can glimpse how a zero waste world might work if you know where to look. Outerwear manufacturer Patagonia makes fleece out of recycled plastic bottles. Herman Miller’s Mirra and Celle office chairs can be disassembled in a few minutes for recycling.

Xerox (Charts), which aims to “create waste-free products in waste-free facilities,” says on its website that it kept 107 million pounds of waste out of landfills in 2005 by reusing and recycling machines, equipment and parts.

This isn’t a new idea. Sanitation workers used to be called scavengers because they resold everything of value they found. Biologist and activist Barry Commoner wrote about zero waste in a 1971 book called The Closing Circle.

But it is a radical idea. The Grass Roots Recycling Network, a group of waste-reduction activists, says: “Zero waste challenges the whole idea of endless consumption without needing to say so,” and “poses a fundamental challenge to ‘business as usual.’”

Interesting, then, that this crusade is getting a boost from Bentonville, Ark.

Wal-Mart (Charts) CEO Lee Scott has set a long-term goal of zero waste as part of the giant retailer’s march towards sustainability. Over the next two years, Wal-Mart wants to reduce solid waste from its U.S. stores by 25 percent.

Scott’s reasoning is simple: “If we had to throw it away, we had to buy it first. So we pay twice, once to get it, once to take it away.” To Wal-Mart, less waste means lower costs.

The company’s efforts have begun to bear fruit—in part by actually recycling fruit.

When I visited Wal-Mart’s experimental green store in Aurora, Co., last year, workers in the produce department were collecting old fruits and vegetables, as well as cardboard packaging, so they could be made into compost...and sold at Wal-Mart. They also used spent cooking oil as fuel, to help heat the store.

Wal-Mart’s waste reduction efforts also encompass corn-based (rather than plastic) food packaging because it can be more easily recycled. It has shrunk the size of Sam’s Club water bottles. It is also recycling plastic—and making money doing so—as the company explains here.

More broadly, Wal-Mart is putting pressure on its 60,000 suppliers to reduce packaging of all kinds. Right now, companies that make packaging have little incentive to cut back since they don’t pay for disposal. The world’s largest retailer may be able to change that.

What’s going on at the local Wal-Mart in your community? Please take our store survey and let us know--we need your help to hold the company accountable for its environmental promises.

Posted by Enviro. Team on Friday, January 12 | 8 comments | Permalink

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