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This Labor Day, Wake Up Walmart, along with a large coalition of labor, environmental and community groups, are challenging Walmart to live up to their PR promises and join us in supporting the American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart.

The coalition includes: AFL-CIO, Change to Win, Sierra Club, Campaign for America’s Future, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National Consumers League, AFSCME, American Rights at Work, Communications Workers of America, Interfaith Worker Justice, LIUNA, National Labor Coordinating Committee, Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Auto Workers, United Farmer Workers and United Steel Workers.

The American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart issues a direct challenge to Walmart in five key areas: worker rights, quality jobs, equal opportunity, corporate responsibility and a healthy environment and lays out the next steps for how the coalition, led by the UFCW, will hold Walmart accountable for those challenges.

Check out the full American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart

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We hate to say “I told you so,” but....

Marc Gunther on ClimateBiz discussed Wal-Mart on his blog yesterday, and points out something we’ve been trying to get across as well. Even as its greenhouse gas emissions have begun to fall, the company’s overall carbon footprint has continued to rise.

As Gwen Ruta of the Environmental Defense Fund, a Wal-Mart partner, writes in her frank assessment of the company’s 2009 sustainability report, the problem is that all the good things that Wal-Mart is doing—increasing its use of renewable energy, driving efficiency in individual stores, improving its fleet operations and pushing up its recycling rate—are offset by the fact that the company is adding more stores and selling more stuff.

In late 2007 we released our own environmental report, in which we brought up the following:

Wal-Mart’s new stores will use more energy than its energy-saving measures will save. Its fleet of trucks, massive overseas shipping to import its goods, and the increasing vehicle miles traveled by its consumers all contribute heavily to CO2 emissions and the number of ozone-causing particulates released into the air. Its huge stores and even larger parking lots contribute to the degradation of our water supply, affecting our drinking water and the viability of aquatic life.

Wal-Mart’s response has been that by increasing its market share, it can replace less efficient competitors and thereby reduce emissions in the retail sector as a whole, even as it continues to expand. That might ultimately be true in the far, far distant future, especially if one day every store is a Wal-Mart. But in the interim, Wal-Mart’s total carbon emissions continue to outpace its efficiency gains. And as Gunther so eloquently adds:

If the Earth’s atmosphere could speak, it would tell us that it doesn’t care about efficiency or renewables or recyling—or market share.

Wal-Mart’s Big Problem: Climate Change [ClimateBiz]

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The Virginia Democratic Primary is tomorrow, and with it gubernatorial candidates on both sides of the aisle are making their views known on the controversial Battlefield Wal-Mart. This also comes just days before the Orange Planning Commission is scheduled to meet to consider the site developer’s request for a special-use permit for the 138,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store.

By now we all know that Wal-Mart wants to build a 141,000-square-foot supercenter on the edge of the Wilderness Battlefield National Park in central Virginia. The plan came under heavy opposition last year by several groups focused on everything from preserving the site’s historical significance to protecting the local environment. Collectively these groups have come to be known as the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition.

This past weekend, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star took a look at the positions of the Virginia gubernatorial hopefuls. Democratic candidates Creigh Deeds and Terry McAuliffe both are in favor of preserving the site, having sent letters expressing as much to current Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, with Deeds going so far as saying he felt an obligation to do so. Both of their letters echo the sentiments of preservation groups - that alternative sites exist that would allow Wal-Mart to build while protecting the sanctity of the Battlefield site.

Deeds:

“The opponents of the proposed project have identified [alternative] sites within two or three miles of the current site,” he wrote Duke. “With this compromise, we can continue to preserve the land and history of the Wilderness battlefield while still providing your company a location for a store.”

McAuliffe:

He asked Duke to “consider moving the Wal-Mart a little ways down the road so that we can preserve this historic site. The Wal-Mart you are building could potentially jeopardize the most popular tourist attraction in Orange County.”

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We’re going to take an ever-so-short break from Wal-Mart and the labor fight to return to the “roots” of the grassroots organizing against the retailer - namely objections to the company’s expansion. To the right is the view from inside a mammoth Wal-Mart Distribution Center. It is big...REAL big. In fact, just a couple months ago, Al Norman laid out exactly HOW big a new Distribution Center in Merced, CA, would be:

This enormous project will consume 270 acres on the southeast side of Merced, a community of roughly 70,000 people. The Distribution Center will pave over 100 acres of prime farmland, to create a 1,200,000 s.f. building—the equivalent of six supercenters under one roof, or 24 football fields. The pavement and parking lot for the facility is 4,353,000 s.f. There is room at the site for 300 parking spaces for tractor-trailers.

Did we mention it’s big? Well what this picture doesn’t illustrate are the environmental concerns of a distribution center beyond simple size - the 24 hours of light affecting local wildlife (and people), the millions of tons of particulates spewed into the air by hundreds of trucks and thousands of cars traveling to and from daily.

As the DC has moved forward, most notably with the release of the City’s draft Environmental Impact Report, opposition has risen as well - see the Merced Stop Wal-Mart Action Team. This week, letters have continued to flow in to local papers opposing the development. These are just a handful of our favorite examples:

Letter: China says ‘thank you’ [Merced Sun-Star]

China says “Thank you, Merced.”

Thank you for building the Wal-Mart distribution center in your town.

Yes, the creation of a few hundred jobs in Merced employed thousands of us to manufacture the cheap stuff you buy at Wal-Mart.

And as your fair city basks in the 24 hours of daylight from the towers of stadium lighting and the comforting hum (visible and audible for miles) of idling trucks, grinding gears, the occasional tooth rattling slam of a load hitting the 100 acres of asphalt, and as your school- children breathe the poison belched from 900 trucks a day, China says thanks and keep supporting the People’s Republic of China by shopping at Wal-Mart.

MICHAEL J. LEONARD
Merced

Check out more after the jump.

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The USA Today reports that Wal-Mart is committed to doubling the amount of solar energy used at its stores. Unsurprisingly, this announcement came out on Earth Day.

“Wal-Mart...will as much as double the size of its solar-power initiative in the next 18 months by putting rooftop solar arrays on 10 to 20 stores and distribution centers in California. The retail giant early this month finished installing solar setups at 18 Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores and two warehouses in California and Hawaii.”

So in the next 18 months Wal-Mart - at best - hopes to have 38 facilities with solar panels. And the latest count on stores Wal-Mart has in the United States: over 4,264. That would be .9%. Not to mention the fact that we have little reason to believe the company will meet this goal considering they couldn’t finish their first goal of 22 facilities in two years.

At Wal-Mart Watch, we’ve made the conscious decision to focus like a laser on workers, and haven’t been talking as much about Wal-Mart and sustainability. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a huge issue.

Last year, Lee Scott went before the 2008 Eco:nomics conference in California to talk about his company’s environmental progress. When asked about how Wal-Mart plans to meet the goals of eliminating waste and providing 100% renewable energy, Lee Scott said, “I haven’t a clue.” He went on to say this about Wal-Mart’s environmental strategy and public relations efforts: “It has been positive from a PR standpoint, but one of the things we learned is that we are not sophisticated enough to spin a story—ultimately, we’d get hammered. We are not out saying we’re a green company. We are not green.”

Has anything changed since then?

Any progress the company makes is admirable, but it remains (as always) a drop in the bucket. This a company that still insists on eating wide swaths of land to build enormous supercenters full of products that are shipped halfway across the globe in tanker ships. The company is not green, and will not be green any time soon.

Flashy environmental announcements like this are a coordinated effort by Wal-Mart to distract its critics, shoppers, and workers from focusing on issues like wages and health care. With the Employee Free Choice Act on the front burner, Wal-Mart is doing what it can to gain positive press. We’re still not buying it.

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Just like it did in 2007 and 2008, Wal-Mart missed the cut of top 100 corporate citizens in 2009, according to Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine. It’s good timing, too - it was barely over a month ago that the entire Walton Family somehow missed the list of top 50 American philanthropists, despite being the wealthiest family in the country, by far.

Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers topped the list this year, claiming among other things substantial reduction of the company’s carbon footprint.

The list is further proof that regardless of what Wal-Mart’s lavish PR campaign tells us, there’s no evidence of any real change to the business model. The company still employs most of its 1.4 million American workers at poverty-level wages, insures only half on the company health care plan, and was just forced to spend hundreds of millions settling lawsuits with workers it refused to pay. And despite a few token improvements, the company still has a business model that is horrible for the environment by encouraging the mass consumption of products that are shipped across the pacific ocean, and sold in massive supercenters shoppers have to drive miles to.

The 100 Best Corporate Citizens [Forbes]

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Live right now! Mike Duke’s speaking now - Lee Scott should be up shortly.

Click here to watch.

UPDATE: Wal-Mart has pledged to reduce by 70% the amount of phosphates in its laundry detergent - by 2011. A step in the right direction. 

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Falling sales-tax revenues. An onslaught of vacant storefronts. When your state economy is based on growth, and the national economy goes in the tank, these are the dangers. According to yesterday’s Arizona Republic:

By late next year, more than 75 stores are expected to close, resulting in a loss of nearly 2,000 Arizona retail jobs. The turnover likely will offer shoppers bargains at various going-out-of-business sales and could eventually inspire an influx of newer, trendier stores. But the closures also have city officials scrambling to cover revenue shortfalls and deter commercial blight.

While Wal-Mart may be able to absorb the cost of closed stores and their leases, cities and towns are left dealing with empty buildings that can lead to a rise in crime and vandalism, the lowering of property values, and depressed sales for neighboring retailers when the closed store is the anchor for a strip mall. And for states like Arizona, a drop in sales tax revenue. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has pointed out that some cities, such as Oakdale, California, or Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, require retail developers set aside money that can be used by the city to either demolish or maintain the site should the store or shopping center become vacant.

Some cities, like Mesa, Arizona, aren’t so lucky.

The shell of a former Walmart sits 2 miles from a Kmart that will close in January. A Mervyn’s and Circuit City will soon depart the area. Such losses this year contributed to Mesa’s $62 million budget shortfall. The city announced 315 layoffs last month.

Cities try to cope with shortfalls in sales taxes, blight left by shut stores [Arizona Republic]

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Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.

This week’s issue begins with a Bloomberg report of Wal-Mart being placed on a list of most controversial companies. Also named - the company responsible for producing melamine-tainted milk in China. The list includes companies criticized for producing negative impacts on communities, health, and the environment, and was based on a study by RepRisk, a consulting firm that analyzes companies’ exposure to controversial issues and news.

You’ll also find stories from BusinessWeek and the Financial Times on how corporate giants like Wal-Mart are gearing up to battle potential pro-labor legislation in 2009. With President-Elect Barack Obama and the Democrats taking over next year, retailers are bracing to fight the Employee Free Choice Act – or EFCA – which could make it easier to organize unions in the workplace.

In addition to EFCA, you’ll find stories on Wal-Mart and the economy. And from the legal front, read about a $19 million discrimination lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart and Pepsi in West Virginia. Plus, in the world of product safety, read more about questions raised by the controversial chemical BPA, as well how Wal-Mart has been selling lead-tainted face paint for kids…a no-no anytime, and especially around Halloween.

And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe. Chicago city aldermen have a wish list for an Obama presidency; the fight continues over whether Wal-Mart can build near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia; and towns in California and Nevada deny Wal-Mart the ability to sell alcohol on its store shelves.

Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials [November 12, 2008]

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According to The Christian Science Monitor: “In Britain, carbon footprinting – used initially to broadly measure environmental impact across a company’s entire operations – is morphing into an eco-labeling tool.” This after a British group reported that 80% of a product’s carbon footprint is laid before the consumer actually drives out and buys or uses it.

Unfortunately, carbon-labeling appears to be a tool Wal-Mart believes the American consumer isn’t ready for.

As for carbon-labeling, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of sustainability, Matt Kistler, says that he doubted existing methodologies and the Wal-Mart customer’s ability to relate carbon with consumer merchandise. “I’m not sure the consumer will ever make a purchase based on the carbon footprint,” he says, “especially the mass consumer.”

Possible. But I think Mr. Kistler underestimates the public’s knowledge on the issue. Sure, many consumers may not know what exactly a carbon-footprint is, but the majority have probably at least heard the term and know it relates in some way to the environment. Carbon-labeling may not affect the buying habits of the majority, yet even if a small percentage of Wal-Mart shoppers were to see the labels and be moved to research the issue further, that can’t be a bad thing, right?

Those making efforts to examine their carbon footprints often do so without transparency – essential to generating both customer support and supply-chain innovation.

At Wal-Mart, consumer transparency is largely tied in to its corporate press releases, a growing assortment of eco-labeled products, and in-store awareness campaigns. A more robust effort is the company’s “Love, Earth” jewelry, which enables customers to use the Internet to map where the jewelry’s gold and silver were mined and manufactured, including information on how the mines manage cyanide and waste dumps.

Are you ready to go on a carbon diet? [The Christian Science Monitor]

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Remember back in August when we wrote about Wal-Mart’s lobbying effort against carbon offset guidelines? It got picked up on a handful of blogs, and started a lively internet discussion about Wal-Mart, the “green” image the company so strongly lusts after, and the (real) global fight to reduce carbon output.

The discussion continues.

The Christian Science Monitor (who blogged about the carbon-offsets issue) today tells us how Wal-Mart is firmly opposed to any sort of required carbon footprint labeling. Here’s the spin Wal-Mart peddled to CSM:

“As for carbon-labeling, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president of sustainability, Matt Kistler, says that he doubted existing methodologies and the Wal-Mart customer’s ability to relate carbon with consumer merchandise.

“I’m not sure the consumer will ever make a purchase based on the carbon footprint,” he says, “especially the mass consumer.”

To respond:

1. How then is Wal-Mart planning to measure the carbon footprint of its suppliers at all? Remember that Wal-Mart just spent weeks puffing out its chest about how it was going to force foreign suppliers to decrease their footprints. And furthermore, Wal-Mart has shown that it’s willing to squeeze its foreign supplier every chance it gets, whether its over RFID technology, sustainability - or just good old fashioned price. Does anyone really believe that carbon footprint can’t be measured, and that Wal-Mart couldn’t or wouldn’t mandate carbon labeling if it felt it would help the bottom line?

2. Customers won’t be able to understand? How about this: a lower number is better than a higher number. I think we can all agree that EVERY SINGLE Wal-Mart shopper could understand what that means, whether or not they are concerned by it. To insinuate otherwise is insulting to the 70% + of Americans who shop at Wal-Mart. According to CSM, “In Britain, carbon footprinting – used initially to broadly measure environmental impact across a company’s entire operations – is morphing into an eco-labeling tool.” Maybe Mr. Kistler just thinks that the British are smarter than Americans?

Five years ago this story wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows. But Wal-Mart’s PR team just got headlines in virtually every major American news outlet for holding a “sustainability summit” in China and supposedly telling its Asian suppliers to get green and get ethical. There was no mention anywhere (that we saw) of mandated carbon labeling on products, so kudos to the Christian Science Monitor for pressing Wal-Mart a little on the issue. Now it’s up to us and other enviro blogs to ring the bell a little louder.

Why doesn’t Wal-Mart want to mandate carbon labeling? Maybe because showing the real footprint of each store’s 100,000+ imported products would take a major dent out of the company’s effort to look soft, friendly and green. Wal-Mart doesn’t want to show you the energy that goes into, and the carbon that comes out of, every dollar it makes - because it’s not pretty. And until the company proves otherwise, we can assume those numbers are headed up - not down.

The heart of the sustainability problem with Wal-Mart’s supply chain is simple: it’s on the other side of the world.

It’s not that Wal-Mart is the only retailer that sources from Asia - far from it. It’s not that steps can’t be taken to make its foreign suppliers more sustainable - they can and should (and hopefully will). It’s that Wal-Mart is determined to earn a “green” image, while at the same time keeping the exact same business model: huge superstores on the highway that stock cheap foreign imports that were shipped on a tanker across the pacific, and then in a truck across the country.

The bottom line: shipping a 19 cent tube sock from Shanghai to Syracuse will never, ever, be “green” - despite what pretty logos are on the package, and whatever ethical or environmental improvements the factory might make.

Are you ready to go on a carbon diet? [Christian Science Monitor]:

In Britain, carbon footprinting – used initially to broadly measure environmental impact across a company’s entire operations – is morphing into an eco-labeling tool.

Earlier this year, the British supermarket chain Tesco began labeling some of its 70,000 products to reflect the carbon released in the their production, transport, and consumption. The 3,729 store behemoth, the world’s fourth-largest retailer, now has 20 carbon-labeled items on its shelves, core items such as orange juice and laundry detergent.

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So, every few months Wal-Mart holds a meeting to crack down its suppliers for one reason or another. What makes this one different enough to earn coverage in every major newspaper in the country? We’re not sure, but it definitely gave Lee Scott an international podium to further shift ethical responsibilty away from Wal-Mart and tell all of China to “do as I say, not as I do.”

Women’s Wear Daily gives what is definitely one of the most absurd quotes we’ve heard from Lee Scott in a long time (links added by me, but he might as well have put them in himself ):

“I firmly believe that a company that cheats on overtime and on the age of its labor, that dumps its scraps and chemicals in our rivers, that does not pay its taxes or honor its contracts — will ultimately cheat on the quality of its products,” said Scott. “And cheating on the quality of products is the same as cheating on customers. We will not tolerate that at Wal-Mart.”

That sounds like someone I know, I just can’t put my finger on it…

A couple other interesting bits. The Financial Times quotes a grumbling supplier:

“It’s going to make things a lot worse,” said one manufacturer at the meeting, who asked not to be identified. Others were more relaxed. “If they don’t like it, they are not going to be doing business with Wal-Mart,” said one US-based Wal-Mart supplier who sources components from China.

The New York Times’ Dot Earth Blog asks what might be the fundamental question:

Wal-Mart has been working to improve its image and lighten its environmental impact for several years now. Of course, as some campaigners against over-consumption have pointed out, Wal-Mart is still selling consumerism even as it pledges to cut the social and environmental costs of making the stuff in its stores. Can we have it all? Can we have cheap shirts and disposable batteries in a world heading toward 9 billion people seeking a decent life? I guess we’ll find out one way or the other.

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Well, my faithful blog readers, after two years of working on Wal-Mart issues and more than a year as the main editor of this blog, our Friday Blog Round-Up today will be my last post. I hope you all continue reading, commenting and working to challenge Wal-Mart’s business practices. Enjoy the writing of my Wal-Mart Watch colleagues and try to keep the infighting to a minimum. As for now - on to the week’s blogs!

BLOGGERS WEIGH IN ON “EMPLOYEES SPEAK OUT”

Real Voices, Some More Wild Stuff [Working Life]

Wal-Mart Watch has set up a website where you can actually hear and read about the actual workers who have to put up with the oppressive behavior of The Beast. This is part of the picture: the Great Robbery that we have all endured for a number of decades--wages not going up (even though productivity goes up), no health care, no pensions--plays out, day-to-day, in those aisles at Wal-Mart.

The voice of the workers (Part 1) [Writing on the Wal]

What you get there is a look behind Walmart’s PR curtain to see what employees are really thinking, but too afraid to tell their supervisors since they don’t have a union to protect them. Indeed, let’s start this series there, in the category that Wal-Mart Watch calls corporate culture.

After the jump, union-busting in Canada, bottle water, Nike’s suit against the Bentonville behemoth and Sarah Palin.

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An already contentious three-and-a-half year battle to stop Wal-Mart from building a Supercenter in Tarpon Springs just took a turn for the unexpected. 

The St. Petersburg Times tells us today how the proposed site of a 205,000 square foot Supercenter has been compromised by two Bald Eagles who built a nest in a tree right smack dab in the middle of a plot intended to be a 1,000 car parking lot.  Bald Eagles are no longer classified as endangered species, but the birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, whereby it is illegal to harm the birds, their nests or eggs in any way. A state wildlife official says that the nest would likely be classified a “category B project,” which would require Wal-Mart to apply for a special permit from the state before beginning any construction.

Wal-Mart has already been under fire for a whole host of problems that the Tarpon Springs project would bring, primarily the pollution and environmental problems that an oil & lube shop and thousands of cars a day would bring to the nearby Anclote River. The Friends of the Anclote River and literally hundreds of citizens have spoken out against this project for years, and the eagles’ nest might be what they need to finally kill the project.

And there was this very encouraging quote from the SP Times today:

Mayor Beverley Billiris said the agencies that protect the eagles will have to weigh in and advise the parties involved..."Maybe the eagle will settle the whole thing,” she said. “I think nature will be the one that will have the last say in it. That’s almost comical.”

That doesn’t seem to jive well with Wal-Mart Spokesman Quenta Vettel, who arrogantly says that Wal-Mart has been aware of the eagles’ nest since spring, and that the city shouldn’t have any say at all in what happens to the eagles:

“This isn’t part of the city’s purview,” she said. “Once we have site plan approval and all the permits that will be required to start clearing and construction, then you begin working with the appropriate agencies to make sure you protect the nest and the eagles.”

The City Commission is meeting next week to reevaluate Wal-Mart’s development certificate, which at least one commissioner says may have expired. Once Wal-Mart gets booted out of town, Ms. Vettel might regret telling residents they have no say what happens in their town.

Here’s betting that our supporters in Tarpon Springs will disagree.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Email Mayor Beverly Billiris and the City Commission now, and urge them to deny Wal-Mart’s development certificate when they meet next week, and end this site fight now, once and for all.

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How does Wal-Mart keep getting away with convincing reporters and environmentalists that it is serious about sustainability? It took Jack Neff, who writes for Advertising Age, to point out the hypocrisy of Wal-Mart¹s environmental policy. Of course, he did it quite subtly but the point is clear.

Neff pointed out in an October 12 piece that a Cincinnati-based executive search firm is circulating a job notice for a “Director - Portfolio Strategy, Private Brands, for Wal-Mart.” Ostensibly, it appears Wal-Mart is ramping up its marketing of its own brands. The position will report to Andy Ruben, who many will remember as the former head of Wal-Mart’s sustainability program.  This is where it gets interesting.

There has been much written about how Wal-Mart is encouraging other companies to make their products more sustainable and promises to promote those that do just that. Much of that was initiated under Ruben’s watch. One might think that if Wal-Mart is serious about such initiatives it would make this a key part of any private label development. Not so. As Neff points out:

the new director position appears more squarely focused on growing sales, market share, cash flow and brand awareness—all of them included in the performance metrics of the job description, while sustainability metrics aren’t.

Once again, Wal-Mart says one thing and does another.  Of course, no one is suggesting that Wal-Mart should not be focused on making money, just that its executives should not lie about their motives.

In Shift, Wal-Mart Puts Focus Back on Private-Label Growth [Advertising Age]

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The latest in a long, impressive history of environmental violations:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced a settlement with Wal-Mart to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA), which prohibits the sale or distribution in interstate commerce of non-essential products containing substances commonly known as Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS). According to the terms of the settlement, Wal-Mart will pay a total civil penalty of $199,000. Wal-Mart has taken action to investigate the causes of the violation, to come into compliance, and to ensure that the violation does not recur.

Maybe they forgot to run “Glow In The Dark Looney String” through the Live Better Index?

Agreement Reached Wtih Wal-Mart in Bentonville, AR on Clean Air Act Violations [EPA Press Release]

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This story from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette exposes how difficult it can be to separate fact from fiction with Wal-Mart’s green campaign. The retailer invited dozens of environmentally-friendly companies down to Bentonville, but doesn’t actually buy supplies from any of them. It was merely a chance for Wal-Mart buyers to see what an eco product looks like. Rand Waddoups’ quote further down in the story doesn’t really address Wal-Mart’s environmental problems, but it sure does sound good in a newspaper story!

Wal-Mart welcomes makers of products easy on environment [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Inside the Lights of America company’s booth on the top floor of the Bentonville Plaza office building Tuesday, dozens of LED — lightemitting diode — lights for various applications glowed from a mere 350 watts of power.

The Walnut, Calif.-based company displayed vanity globes, accent lighting, track lights and other applications, with 1. 5-watt bulbs providing light equivalent to a 40-watt incandescent bulb.

Despite the obvious energy savings, Brian Halliwell, vice president of sales and marketing for Lights of America, doesn’t see LED bulbs replacing general-purpose light bulbs anytime soon. For now, he said, the miserly lights are likely to remain in the realm of accent lighting in the home.

Lights of America was among 80 vendor companies that set up booths as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hosted its first “closed-loop networking showcase” near the company’s headquarters. The event brought together buyers for Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club warehouse outlets with companies featuring environmentally friendly products for sale at retail or for use in store construction.

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Wal-Mart has already acknowledged (PDF) the fact that illegal logging goes on in its wood supply chain. A new investigation by The New Yorker follows lumber from the forests of Russia to the toilet seat aisle of Wal-Mart stores.

Taking six years to eliminate illegal logging from its supply seems like a long time for a company that can get Procter and Gamble to sell concentrated laundry detergent in a matter of months, don’t you think?

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Can one word be the difference between a Wal-Mart and no Wal-Mart? In Estero, FL, that might be the case.

For years, Wal-Mart has had a loosely planned project in Estero on U.S. 41 and Estero Parkway. The project, however, has always been tied to the long-planned widening of U.S. 41 to 6 lanes. Wal-Mart is fighting hard to reclassify the project to a “super-concurrency” from just a “concurrency” - which currently prevents Wal-Mart from breaking ground until until the road project begins.

Al Norman at Battlemart runs down the laundry list of reasons locals are opposing the project, which would be detrimental to all of Estero’s long-held smart-growth plans

From the sounds of the city planners, moving up the Wal-Mart might jeopardize the timeline of the much-needed widening project. This on top of the serious traffic concerns of a putting in a Wal-Mart before the road is widened (Wal-Mart is planning to commission a new study which “changes the parameters” and magically reverses the conclusion that this would be a traffic nightmare.)

The road project already requires the city to donate several acres of a historic estate, and the proposed Wal-Mart site is only about 1000 feet away from the Koreshan Park Historic Site, which is a preserved unique 19th-century colony.

Like almost anywhere else in Florida - there is no shortage of Wal-Mart stores around Estero, with 8 in the Fort Myers area, and another 6 around Naples. Estero doesn’t need another one - all the signs are pointing to no for this new Wal-Mart.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Email all five members of the Lee County Commission and tell them to say no Wal-Mart once and for all.

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In case you hadn’t noticed, Wal-Mart has received some criticism for its business practices over the last few years. Condemnations of low wages, discrimination, environmental damage, damage to local economies and sweatshop sourcing have come at Wal-Mart from all angles. At some point, someone at the company realized these attacks might be bad for business.

So the company went on the offensive. Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect, explained to a conference of editorial writers this week that in recent months, Wal-Mart has made a massive effort to improve its image. Whereas the retailer once focused on lowering prices regardless of the cost, attacks on the company’s ethics made Wal-Mart realize the high price of behaving badly.

Fishman is certainly right on this point: after years of criticism, it seems Wal-Mart’s leadership finally recognized the value of a good reputation. Since its revelation, Wal-Mart has worked to highlight not only its low prices but its good deeds too, spending millions to publicize its environmental efforts and charitable giving. A new ad campaign, a new slogan and numerous public appearances by company executives drive home Wal-Mart’s new message: We’re not all bad, really.

Wal-Mart’s work to become a socially responsible company, however, is far from done. The company’s labor problems remain completely unresolved: wages and benefits for hourly workers are still paltry, allegations of union-busting remain rampant, and the company’s discriminatory practices have resulted in dozens of lawsuits in the last year alone. Labor issues are the most expensive to resolve, but a recent study (PDF) shows that shoppers take a company’s labor practices into consideration above all other social responsibility issues. The company cannot and will not succeed with its image overhaul until these issues are addressed.

Even Wal-Mart’s highly-touted environmental campaign has problems. While the company cites reduced packaging and organic cotton among its crowning achievements, Wal-Mart’s massive energy consumption, unsustainable land use, and unethical sourcing practices negate any positive impact the company might have. Poor product quality contributes to environmental problems too, and several recalls over the last year and a half reveal the high price of cutting costs. The company’s relationship with local communities continues to be a problem as well.

Like Mr. Fishman, we are also interested to know the impact of Wal-Mart’s environmental footprint - both good and bad. But any examination of Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts should take into account the company as a whole - with all its problems, from factory to shopping cart - not just the side Wal-Mart wants us to see.

Two say Wal-Mart image on mend [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]