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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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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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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 markets its new “Love, Earth” jewelry line as “fashion jewelry that honors, cherishes and protects our planet.” Targeted at shoppers concerned with the environmental and human rights problems associated with gold mining, shoppers can trace their “Love, Earth” jewelry from “mine to market,” assured that it is sourced “from mines that maintain leading environmental and social standards.”

Just one day after Norway slammed Wal-Mart’s “sustainable” gold supplier for massive environmental damages, the environmental group Global Response has publicly condemned Wal-Mart for its gold greenwashing campaign. While the company makes overtures to environmentalism - using pictures of green fields and butterflies on the “Love, Earth” website - it relies on vague terminology, few enforceable standards and biased monitoring in calling the jewelry line “sustainable.” From Global Response:

Wal-Mart’s criteria look good on paper. They include “Safe disposal and management of waste and hazardous materials ...Protection of ecological functioning, ecosystem services and important biodiversity...Respect for the rights of individuals, indigenous peoples and communities [and] Contribution to the sustainable development of communities affected by operations.” But who is monitoring Newmont’s performance? Newmont and Wal-Mart.

The group goes on to criticize Wal-Mart’s mining partner, the Newmont Mining Corporation, for mining on land owned by the Western Shoshone tribe of Nevada. The Western Shoshone Defense Project has been fighting Newmont for years over the corporation’s environmentally-damaging practices.

Wal-Mart’s other partner in the “Love, Earth” line is Rio Tinto, a mining company recently blacklisted by Norway’s pension fund for its environmental damage in Indonesia. Norway has categorically refused to invest in irresponsible corporations: Wal-Mart itself was dropped from the fund in 2006.

Wal-Mart wants customers to see it as an environmentally-progressive corporation, but the company is trying to do it on the cheap. Rather than improve its sourcing practices or demand change from its suppliers, Wal-Mart has repeatedly focused on marketing instead. This not only fails to protect the environment, it actually tricks shoppers into supporting unsustainable practices.

What you can do: Join Wal-Mart Watch and Global Response in calling on Wal-Mart to stop greenwashing its gold. Click here to write a letter to the retailer, or send a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising. With your help, we can spread the word about Wal-Mart’s greenwashed gold.

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We missed Rainforest Action Network’s “Greenwash of the Week” back in April when they did an amazing job explaining the problems with Wal-Mart’s green efforts. The core of their argument: Wal-Mart’s low prices don’t reflect the true environmental cost of its products. RAN vloggers Bria and Robin break it down:

Does this mean that Wal-Mart really cares about being a green company and changing the way they do business to protect our future and the environment? Not exactly.

One reason Wal-Mart’s prices are so cheap is that they don’t pay all the environmental and human costs of all their products. They’re subsidized by environmental and human exploitation.

It’s called “externalizing the cost of production.”

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Wal-Mart Canada has faced some big labor problems lately. A 2005 lawsuit against the company’s anti-union labor practices made it to the Canadian Supreme Court this month, and at almost the same time workers in a Wal-Mart garage in Gatineau, Quebec managed to unionze, much to the company’s chagrin. So the company’s PR department did what it does best: divert attention.

David Cheesewright, CEO of Wal-Mart Canada, announced today that all of the company’s new Canadian stores will be “energy efficient.” The retailer has yet to meet any independent guidelines for energy efficiency, so its environmental claims are somewhat unclear, but the announcement comes at a time when Wal-Mart Canada could use some serious public relations karma.

Cheesewright insisted that the efficiency improvements were simply cost-saving measures, and said “environmental sustainability and business sustainability—it’s the same thing.” However, the company has yet to announce any such measures for its U.S. stores - or its stores in any other country, for that matter. The number of “energy efficient” Wal-Mart stores remains a pitifully small percentage of the company’s total operations. So if Cheesewright’s statements are true, Wal-Mart is missing out on a lot of cost savings - and we all know Wal-Mart wouldn’t do a thing like that. Perhaps the retailer is actually just looking for some free PR among our neighbors to the north.

Wal-Mart aims for ‘greenest stores on the block’ [Financial Post (Canada)]

Wal-Mart Canada Corp. pushed its green agenda ahead Tuesday by pledging that all new stores will be built to be markedly more energy efficient, and existing stores will be retrofitted to make them more environmentally friendly.

“Wal-Mart Canada (WMT/NYSE) has been intensely dedicated to environmental sustainability over the past three years,” Wal-Mart Canada CEO David Cheesewright said at the annual meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario on Tuesday. “Perhaps no change has been as significant as those made to the way we build and operate our buildings. And the changes are progressing. We are confident that Wal-Mart stores will be among the greenest on the block.”

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WORKERS’ RIGHTS DEFENDANTS ASK FEC TO INVESTIGATE WAL-MART
Anyone who reads our blog regularly has undoubtedly already seen this article. Here are some reactions to it from the blogosphere.

Tell the FEC to Investigate Wal-Mart for Electioneering [ZP Heller on the Huffington Post]

Wal-Mart must be forced to set a better example regarding labor practices.  And here’s our chance to make them by signing American Rights at Work’s petition.  If Wal-Mart broke the law by threatening and scaring employees about which candidates to vote for this November, compel the FEC to hold the company accountable.

Unions strike back at Wal-Mart [BloggingStocks]

Why is Wal-Mart set to pick a fight with the Democrats? Don’t the folks in Bentonville read the political tea leaves? Odds are pretty good that the country will go Blue in a big way. Maybe the company is worried that the good times reflected in today’s results won’t last.

Wal-Mart: Political Bully [Alternet]
For years, Wal-Mart has been plagued by bad press. Now it has to fend off a Wall Street Journal report that it’s been politically bullying its employees. ANP headed over to a Wal-Mart in Virginia to ask shoppers what they think.

Wal-Mart busted on video for lying to employees about their rights [The G Spot]

It’s unclear whether Wal-Mart will face any legal consequences for the lies they told. But the Journal article notes that action has been taken on another front: labor groups have filed a complaint against Wal-Mart with the Federal Elections Commission. They’re asking the commission to investigate whether the meetings Wal-Mart organized around the country warning thousands of employees about the consequences of electing a Democratic president violated the law (you can find the complaint here). Will the F.E.C. take action? It seems like there’s a decent shot they might.

After the jump, life as a Wal-Mart pharmacist, Sam’s Club’s dubious green claims and design wonks hold their own Wal-Mart redesign contest.

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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.

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Conscientious consumers everywhere know it’s hard to sort through all the conflicting messages about where to shop. Multiple factors go in to making a company socially responsible - fair labor standards, ethical sourcing, environmental care, community impact and transparent corporate practices - and it can be hard to take them all into consideration simultaneously.

Co-op America’s newly expanded Responsible Shopper website is designed to cut through that confusion. The site lists news stories, special reports and academic studies about companies’ business practices in hopes of helping shoppers make informed shopping decisions. The site’s profile of Wal-Mart notes several outstanding labor and human rights violations that no responsible shopper would support, and offers low-price alternatives to big box retailers.

Co-op America’s Responsible Shopper >>

Web Site Dishes Up Dirt, Exposes ‘Greenwashing’ [Consumer Affairs]

Worried that your consumer dollars are rewarding bad corporations with problem practices? Concerned about greenwashing? Wish there was an easy way to get the dirt on America’s biggest companies before you buy something? Looking for a way to pressure consumer companies you patronize to get responsible and clean up their acts?

A new Web site, ResponsibleShopper.org, promises to do all that, and then some.

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Climate activists protested yesterday outside the global headquarters of Wal-Mart’s public relations firm Edelman, slamming the PR agency for greenwashing the environmental policies of companies like Wal-Mart.

Holding a banner that read “EDELMAN PR: SPINNING THE CLIMATE OUT OF CONTROL,” the activists climbed on the roof of Edelman’s headquarters to draw attention not only to the environmentally-damaging practices of companies like Wal-Mart, but to also put an end to the PR firm’s deliberately misleading greenwashing campaigns.

One protester was quoted at the scene saying, “We are here to reclaim the PR machine for normal people who want to see real action on climate change, not another dose of corporate greenwash.” Wal-Mart has been adhering to this philosophy for years, consistently choosing press conferences and TV commericals over actual action or changes to the company’s business model.

Help reclaim the PR machine: spread the word about this protest and Wal-Mart’s history of environmental inaction by linking to this post on your MySpace page, Facebook profile, personal blog or by sending it to your friends and family. Wal-Mart has gotten away with greenwashing for too long, and it’s time activists everywhere demand real action - not words - from the world’s largest corporation.

Activists target Edelman in climate change protest [PR Week (UK)]
Oxford Climate Action Spin The Spinners! [UK Indymedia]