0 comments

---

Do you want the real story about who destroyed America’s REAL economy?

We wanted to recommend a new book that just hit the shelves. In Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism And The Economics Of Destruction, New America Foundation’s Barry C. Lynn takes an explosive look at how Wall Street financiers took advantage of the overthrow of our antimonopoly laws to consolidate unprecedented powers.

They use these powers in ways that destroy jobs, degrade safety, crush independent businesses, forestall innovation, harm our environment, and threaten the political foundations of our democratic republic.

Not surprisingly, Walmart is a major player in this disturbing story. Lynn discusses Walmart as one of the quintessential examples of the destructive monopoly, arguing that Walmart needs to change its ways not just for the benefit of workers or communities, but for the entire economy.

Here is what others are saying about Cornered:

Cornered has changed my view of what’s gone wrong with American capitalism. Brilliantly argued and meticulously reported, it confronts with the age-old enemy of both progressives and libertarian conservatives—the power of monopoly.
-Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and Brightsided.

This book is essential to understanding how we got into our current mess.
-Michael Mandel, chief economist, BusinessWeek.

This is a truly groundbreaking and eye-opening work that everyone interested in understanding how the world really operates should read.
-Ha Joon Chang, winner Leontief Prize in economics, author Bad Samaritans.

52 comments

---

Classic Wal-Mart. Only months after Wal-Mart tried to suppress a report detailing its sweatshop abuses in the country, the company is back in town demanding lower prices.

For the past few years as labor costs in China have become too high for Wal-Mart’s liking the company has been looking more and more into cheaper countries, like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam. While Wal-Mart and other retailers are claiming that the price cuts are necessary for Bangladesh to remain competitive with countries like India and Vietnam, Bangladesh’s prices already are among of the lowest in the world.

Bangladesh’s workers, like their U.S. counterparts, deserve better. These workers are not passively accepting virtual servitude: labor activism has grown there in recent years and some unions have resulted, though legal protections remain minimal. In 2006, factory workers even took to the streets in protest.

As the most powerful and profitable retailer in the world, the onus is on Wal-Mart to stand up and do the right thing for its workers - in every corner of the world.

International cloth buyers ask Bangladesh to cut prices [Reuters]

International cloth buyers and retailers at a rare meeting in Dhaka on Thursday asked Bangladesh to reduce prices of the ready-made garments (RMG) to make them competitive in the global markets, a key business leader said.

“They have suggested us to make all-out efforts to keep the prices at least at the level of what the price is being offered by India, Pakistan, China and Vietnam, the major competitors of us,” said Abdus Salam Murshedy, the president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

More than 50 major buyers including Sears Holdings Global Sourcing Ltd, Marks & Spencer Plc, Hennes & Mauritz International, Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Tesco International and Nike Inc, attended the meeting with Bangladesh’s textile exporters.

Read the rest of this story ...

8 comments

---

Wal-Mart Buyer Accepts 120,000 RMB Bribe, Retail Business Bribes top 1,000,000RMB [Daily Economic News via Sina]

The other day, a Wal-Mart buyer who received a supply trade bribe was arrested by the Shenzhen prosecutor’s office.

The buyer had been with Wal-Mart for many years, revealed the “Daily Economic News”, making known for the first time a large scale bribery case.  The incident also airs Wal-Mart interior staff’s employment of “secret service” to monitor and investigate Wal-Mart staff.

Information from Shenzhen’s Futian police illustrates that the local police station has gathered two months worth of evidence to successfully uncover a 20,000 RMB bribery case.  At present the suspect as been arrested. 

In September, the local police station received the case from Wal-Mart’s investigations department reporting a Wal-Mart buyer and a Shandong egg supplier.  Wal-Mart buyer Liao Mou demanded 20,000 RMB from the egg supplier as an “entrance fee”. 

The police investigation discovered that last year Liao Mou indeed demanded 20,000 RMB from a Shandong egg supplier, having the money transferred to a far away relative’s bank account.  Moreover, one Wal-Mart staff also discovered that Liao Mou met a supplier in a park to receive a bank card with 100,000 RMB.

On October 15, police detained Liao Mou as a criminal.  On October 23, Liao Mou was arrested by the prosecutor’s office as a suspect in business bribery.

Wal-Mart’s public relations department staff told the “Daily Economic News” that honesty is Wal-Mart’s number one principle.  Wal-Mart welcomes the supply trade investigation and will work to create a series of mechanisms to prevent bribery cases from happening.  “The ways this incident was handled first gives a warning to employees and second gives the supply trade something to think about.”

Read the rest of this story ...

5 comments

---

Last Friday, Wal-Mart Watch had the opportunity to attend a presentation on “Wal-Mart, China and Responsible Sourcing” at Johns Hopkins University.  Beth Keck, the senior director of international sustainability and strategy for Wal-Mart, was there to represent Wal-Mart.

Keck’s presentation primarily focused on sustainable buildings, plastic bags, and packaging, but also mentioned Wal-Mart’s new supplier standards.

After Keck finished her 28 slide PowerPoint presentation, she fielded questions from the audience.  A great majority of those present wondered if Wal-Mart’s “always low prices” mantra is inherently contradictory to sustainability.  Keck replied that it is not and talked about packaging.

Regarding the new supplier standards, I pointed out to Ms. Keck the reaction Wal-Mart’s sustainability summit had received in the news and I asked her how Wal-Mart suppliers were to supposed to pick up the costs of improving standards when many of Wal-Mart suppliers are forced to supply Wal-Mart with little or no profit. 

Keck talked about packaging…

Read the rest of this story ...

17 comments

---

As Wal-Mart continues to push suppliers to the brink of death, more and more suppliers are opening up about their relationships with Wal-Mart.  The stories all contain one common denominator:  “It’s always hard to make money from Wal-Mart orders.” And while big brands like Proctor and Gamble can supply Wal-Mart at cost, smaller suppliers do so and “wait to die”.  In an article from Sinotoys.net, “Bo Lin” (an alias), a toy supplier for Wal-Mart, describes the woes of working with the giant.  Aside from Wal-Mart’s low cost bargaining tactics, Bo Lin also describes being bribed by Wal-Mart factory inspection officials to pass inspection, regardless of the circumstances in his factories.

“We’re a small enterprise.  Life and death can happen in a split second,” Bo Lin said great anguish.

Last month, a business owned by a friend of Bo Lin’s closed down.  That was a stationery processing plant with sales that surpassed 400 million [RMB].  Almost all the goods were supplied to Wal-Mart.  Bo Lin’s factory is also a Wal-Mart supplier.  “We all used to do business with Wal-Mart for the glory,” Bo Lin said describing the initial excitement of becoming a Wal-Mart supplier.

During our interview, Bo Lin repeated that sentence 5 times. 

But after 4 years of struggle within Wal-Mart’s supply chain, Bo Lin is determined to withdraw. “Four years is the cycle of death and rebirth”.  This is “established law” for all of Wal-Mart’s suppliers.  The difference is only whether to die or withdraw.

Read the rest of this story ...

4 comments

---

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.

Read the rest of this story ...

2 comments

---

Maybe Wal-Mart doesn’t understand how products are made.

In Wal-Mart’s world, suppliers make products for Wal-Mart because the pleasure of working with Wal-Mart is so great.  In fact, the less profit a supplier makes from working with Wal-Mart, the greater pleasure!  That must be why when Wal-Mart demanded suppliers improve their “sustainability” and “safety”, Wal-Mart said it will not pay for these increased costs.  Rather, Wal-Mart said it would reward compliant factories with longer contracts of the same low-priced orders.

But in the real world - where people have responsibilities outside of their contracts with Wal-Mart (like feeding their families) - suppliers are ailing.  Many report that Wal-Mart has failed to take into consideration reality - that costs of raw materials and manufacturing have increased substantially. Many suppliers are being forced to “either supply Wal-Mart goods while not raising prices and wait to die or raise the prices and court death.”

To make reality just a little more grim, Wal-Mart is now demanding that suppliers implement radio frequency identification (RFID) to replace bar codes.  According to reports, implementing RFID will increase the cost burden on suppliers by 20 times the cost of the currently used bar code.  While the suppliers are left to figure out how to pay for the increased cost, Wal-Mart is expected to save $8.35 BILLION each year. 

As we’ve seen, coercing suppliers to produce at below cost forces suppliers to abuse labor and use inferior materials - thus creating Wal-Mart’s real need to increase sustainability and safety.

If Wal-Mart wants real, sustainable change, Wal-Mart needs to put the money behind it.  Until then, we all lose.

46 comments

---

Back in July, we told you about Procter and Gamble price increases of up to 16%.  We could see where P&G was coming from, with the increasing prices of raw materials and all, but we still wondered whether Wal-Mart would be able to see it the same way.  It turns out that Wal-Mart refused the price increase.  According to an article from the China Standards Information Consulting Service, P&G will supply Wal-Mart with “basically no profit”.  While a huge company like P&G might be able to weather Wal-Mart’s unreasonable demands, the article further explains that small suppliers don’t stand a chance.  “Some suppliers will have no choice: either supply Wal-Mart goods while not raising prices and wait to die or raise the prices and court death.”

Wal-Mart Raises Quality Standards, Supply Chain Profitless [China Standards Information Consulting Service via HC360]

The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, announced on October 22 that it will raise China’s supply trade quality standards.  Starting November, the process will begin with clothing and will ultimately cover all goods. 

With greater concern on food safety and product quality, Wal-Mart can no doubt gain consumer confidence.  But even with the appreciation of raw materials and labor costs on the supply trade side, Wal-Mart has raised prices very little – it’s always been requested that the costs of raising standards be dealt with “in house”.  Under these circumstances, the supply trade will become even more depressed.  Some suppliers will have no choice: either supply Wal-Mart goods while not raising prices and wait to die or raise the prices and court death.

Read the rest of this story ...

3 comments

---

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.

24 comments

---

Labor rights violations have plagued Wal-Mart’s supply chain since the company abandoned its “Buy American” campaign in the early 1990’s. Wal-Mart’s business model relies on low prices, and those low prices are made possible by manufacturing products overseas where economies are weaker and human rights enforcement is lax.

Yesterday, the company announced that it will require suppliers to avoid cotton from Uzbekistan, which is known for using children to harvest cotton each year. From IWPR’s The Cost of Uzbek White Gold:

Gathering cotton in the autumn has been considered the most important part of life for an Uzbek citizen since Soviet times. But the hefty dollar revenues reaped by the government from its monopoly export and processing business are made on the backs of children who provide cheap labour.

Many other retailers have also started boycotting Uzbekistan’s cotton, and it is without a doubt an issue that should be addressed by every conscientious company. Wal-Mart use it’s purchasing power like this a thousand different times in dozens of countries and still not resolve all the problems in its supply chain. We only hope to see more efforts like this coming out of Bentonville.

Wal-Mart asks suppliers to avoid Uzbek cotton [Reuters]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Tuesday it is requiring its suppliers to stop sourcing cotton from Uzbekistan, in an effort to end child labor there.

Read the rest of this story ...

3 comments

---

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?

9 comments

---

Hot on the heels of a report in which Wal-Mart advocates against clearer guidelines for environmental marketing, the Arkansas Morning News reports the megaretailer is telling its suppliers increase their environmental marketing. Wal-Mart’s “green” initiative is part of the company’s attempt to improve its reputation, and apparently the company just can’t get enough of it. Rather than telling its suppliers to source responsibly or focus on reducing carbon emissions, Wal-Mart is telling them to hire a decent ad agency and slap a fresh coat of green paint on everything they sell.

The point of this marketing push, as one Wal-Mart exec explained to a crowd of 250 suppliers, is not to improve Wal-Mart’s environmental impact. Rather, it’s to convince shoppers that Wal-Mart cares about the environment: whether that statement is actually true seems to be beside the point. The irony here is that this kind of behavior will ultimately make Wal-Mart’s green marketing fail. Consumers remain distrustful of Wal-Mart’s environmental claims, and actions like this are precisely why. In fact, Wal-Mart seems guilty of several of the “six sins of greenwashing,” which appear at the end of the article. This initiative might just be Wal-Mart’s way of atoning for its sins without actually changing its behavior.

Six “Sins” of Greenwashing

• Hidden trade off - Does the product focus only on one or two environmental issues while ignoring other important issues?
• No proof - Does the product offer evidence of its claim, either on the package or through the company Web site?
• Vagueness - What does environmentally friendly really mean?
• Irrelevance - Claiming something is “CFC-free” is nice, but they were banned 30 years ago.
• Fibbing - Can anyone else back up the claim?
• Lesser of two evils - Is organic tobacco really a green product?

Source: TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc.

Wal-Mart Details Green Marketing To Suppliers [NW Arkansas Morning News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. doesn’t just want sustainable products from its suppliers, it wants them complete with a story to tell customers. Rand Waddoups, senior director of corporate strategy and sustainable development, on Thursday told more than 250 suppliers that Wal-Mart had devised a clearer strategy on its sustainability marketing.

Read the rest of this story ...

44 comments

---

Beware, developing world:  Wal-Mart is on the prowl.  After years of exploiting the Chinese workforce and importing billions and billions of Chinese goods to the U.S., it looks like the codependent relationship is on the brink.  According to the Wall Street Journal, suppliers which once relied on Wal-Mart’s demand for cheap goods are slowing production and some are even closing their doors. 

While the growth of China’s economy has increased workers’ rights, albeit mildly, and appreciated the value of China’s currency, these factors have also increased the costs of doing business in China.  So even though Wal-Mart has worked extensively to develop trade pathways and relationships in China – and is continuing, to some extent, to develop these pathways (even building a new distribution center in Jiaxing), it seems Wal-Mart is searching for an even more exploitable, expendable population to fill its shelves with products that supposedly help its consumers ‘save money’ and ‘live better’. 

But where will Wal-Mart go?  Wal-Mart won’t comment.  So beware.

China’s Export Machine Threatened by Rising Costs [Wall Street Journal]

As a sign over its main boulevard proclaims, Honghe is “China’s Famous Town for Sweaters.” But the economy of sweater town is unraveling, providing an early sign that China’s manufacturing sector may be entering middle age.

Over the past two decades, this city about 90 minutes’ drive from Shanghai built a comfortable niche in the global economy. At the industry’s height in recent years, more than half of Honghe’s 100,000 residents worked in 100 factories and 8,000 shops that knitted, dyed, packaged and shipped some 200 million sweaters a year. The local government says the enterprises brought in $650 million a year in revenue.

Read the rest of this story ...

6 comments

---

A great new seafood sustainability report was released today by Greenpeace. Titled “Carting Away The Oceans: How Grocery Stores Are Emptying The Seas,” the report comprehensively profiles and grades 20 American grocery chains on their seafood buying and selling practices. Surprisingly, Wal-Mart came in 5th in the rankings - but nonetheless earned a failing grade.

Seafood has been an area where Wal-Mart has made considerable efforts to appear sustainable - or at least heading in that direction. The company announced recently that within the next few years it would work towards 100 percent sustainable seafood in partnership with Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). In 2006 Wal-Mart began selling MSC certified seafood, and currently offers 22 MSC certified products.

But Wal-Mart’s got a long way to go. Greenpeace finds that the company still sells 14 unsustainable “Red List” species: Alaskan pollock, Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sea scallops, Chilean sea bass, grouper, hoki, red snapper, redfish, orange roughy, South Atlantic albacore tuna, tropical shrimp and yellowfin tuna.  And it’s been less than two months since we were all reminded that sustainability goes far beyond just the environment , when “virtual slavery” among workers was exposed at Wal-Mart’s shrimp suppliers in Thailand and Bangladesh.

Wal-Mart’s efforts to sell sustainable seafood should applauded, but it is entirely within the company’s power to stop buying unsustainable seafood sooner rather than later. 

1 comments

---

A little over four months ago, Wal-Mart asked demanded its suppliers to comply with its new “Sustainable Packaging Scorecard” Initiative. While the move bolstered Wal-Mart’s public image as a benevolent force for good, through its requirement that all its retailers cut down on packaging, (in addition to providing the necessary paperwork) it set up yet another set of collateral obstacles for suppliers who were already struggling in the midst of Wal-Mart’s requirements (such as the RFID tag requirement, which eventually fizzled out). 

Two months after the deadline passed for completing the tedious scorecards, we noted that less than 50% of Wal-Mart’s products had been rated according to Wal-Mart’s demanded metrics.  Much of this had to do with suppliers’ reluctance to accede to another mandate that provided little value or opportunity for growth.  In light of the confusion and frustration experienced by suppliers, Wal-Mart partnered with Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing to offer an informative class on how to “efficiently enter packages into the scorecard” and “proactively find ways to improve package scores.” The catch was the steep cost: $899 per person for a one-day workshop.

Rather than outsourcing the project of sustainability to its “supplier-partners” - a sham considering that Wal-Mart gives its suppliers little financial leeway to work with its requirements - Wal-Mart should first take serious its own commitments to sustainability before requiring others to do the same.

37 comments

---

Wal-Mart spends millions of dollars each year on public relations hoping to counteract the negative impact the company’s business practices have on its reputation. In the process, Wal-Mart’s representatives misrepresent the company, even lying to protect its fragile reputation. In this series, we’ll be examining some of the most common lies the company tells - and truth behind the spin.

Lie #4: Wal-Mart Buys Locally
“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” [Sam Walton, Wal-Mart Press Release, 3/13/85]

“Today we instruct buyers to make trips to places like Greenville, South Carolina; Dothan, Alabama...before just routinely dashing off a letter of credit to the Far East.” [Sam Walton: Made in America, 308]

“With this approach, we estimate we have saved or created almost 100,000 American manufacturing jobs...Every job we save creates another potential Wal-Mart customer who’s not worrying about where his or her next dollar is coming from.” [Sam Walton: Made in America, 310]

The Truth:
Wal-Mart is China’s sixth largest export market. In 2006, Wal-Mart imported $27 billion of Chinese goods.  Wal-Mart’s imports are responsible for 11% of the growth of the total U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2006. [Time, 6/19/05; EPI Issue Brief #235, 6/27/07]

Read the rest of this story ...

4 comments

---

Wal-Mart needs cars. It needs cars to bring its customers to its stores, it needs trucks to transport products, and it needs car-centric development styles to keep selling and keep expanding.

But cars just don’t mesh well with Wal-Mart’s recent green marketing efforts. Cars need oil, and oil is bad for the environment, so what’s a marketing agency to do? Build a website! The Wal-Mart Foundation donated $675,000 to launch drivesmarterchallenge.org, which encourages consumers to save gas by driving slower, keeping tires inflated, and replacing car air filters regularly. Nowhere does the site advocate driving less, shopping at stores closer to where you live or supporting companies that source locally.

Wal-Mart contributes greatly to the number of miles driven by U.S. consumers each year. In her article “Keep Your Eyes On the Size,” author Stacy Mitchell cites consumer driving as a major oversight in Wal-Mart’s carbon emissions estimates. She goes on to say:

The dramatic growth of big-box retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot, over the last 15 years has been mirrored by an equally dramatic rise in how many miles we travel running errands. Between 1990 and 2001 (the most recent year for which the U.S. Department of Transportation has data), the number of miles that the average American household drove each year for shopping grew by more than 40 percent.

It’s not that we are going to the store more often, but rather that each trip is an average of about two miles longer.... [Big box stores] have displaced tens of thousands of neighborhood and downtown businesses and consolidated the necessities of life into massive stores that aggregate car-borne shoppers from large areas.

While Wal-Mart might take a lot of credit for initiatives like this one, the company continues to miss the bigger picture. A flashy new website is not the same as comprehensive changes to the company’s business practices, and while the company continues to pay lip service to green issues, its lack of true commitment to the environment is pathetic.

Wal-Mart Foundation Donates $675,000 to Help Launch the Alliance to Save Energy’s ‘Drive $marter Challenge’ [PR Newswire via MarketWatch]

12 comments

---

This post originally appeared on Green Options.

It will take more than promises and glossy marketing campaigns to convince consumers that Wal-Mart is green, a recent study has found.

The largest retailer on earth finds itself the subject of Environmental Leader’s latest study on green marketing. Despite Wal-Mart’s massive green marketing campaign over the last year, consumers still don’t consider the retailer a sustainable company, explaining:

Brands that have spent significant marketing dollars communicating green initiatives such as Wal-Mart and GE are not connecting.

Environmental Leader’s report focuses specifically on the effectiveness of green marketing campaigns, but it implies a much larger truth: consumers aren’t buying Wal-Mart’s greenwashing. The chart above (click here for a larger version) explains that in the minds of socially-conscious shoppers, social responsibility goes far beyond Wal-Mart’s current definition. Employee treatment, community connection and supply chain practices are equally important as environmental issues. But Wal-Mart has a track record of trouble in each of these categories, leading conscientious consumers to rightfully distrust the company’s green overtures.

Wal-Mart’s habit of making cosmetic changes instead of systematic improvements to its business practices aren’t fooling any shoppers. If Wal-Mart wants its green message to stick, it needs to address its sustainability problems from the ground up. Corporate transparency, employee friendliness, and fair, sustainable product sourcing aren’t just footnotes to an advertising campaign - they’re necessary parts of the modern responsible corporation. Wal-Mart would be better served to use the millions it currently spends on marketing to make holistic changes to its business model.

Green Marketing Campaigns Don’t Always Stick [Marketing Vox]

Some 71 percent of North Americans want to know about the socially responsible behavior of brands they buy — but most people cannot identify a list of major brands as socially responsible or irresponsible, according to a new poll, writes Environmental Leader, MarketingCharts reports.

Read the rest of this story ...

0 comments

---

A lengthy piece from the Washington Monthly today examines overseas labor standards and the challenges workers face to getting fair treatment. The author notes that while many companies claim to have “ethical sourcing codes,” little is done to enforce them. Wal-Mart has such a code, but the author notes the retailer will always go with the cheapest supplier no matter what. The article also compares Wal-Mart’s inspection record to its closest U.S. competitor: while Wal-Mart conducts unannounced factory inspections 26% of the time, Target conducts unannounced inspections 100% of the time. Improving overseas labor standards isn’t just good for Wal-Mart’s PR: it’s the law.

Confessions of a Sweatshop Inspector [Washington Monthly]

Presidential candidates are calling for tougher labor standards in trade agreements. But can such standards be enforced? Here’s what I learned from my old job.

I remember one particularly bad factory in China. It produced outdoor tables, parasols, and gazebos, and the place was a mess. Work floors were so crowded with production materials that I could barely make my way from one end to the other. In one area, where metals were being chemically treated, workers squatted at the edge of steaming pools as if contemplating a sudden, final swim. The dormitories were filthy: the hallways were strewn with garbage—orange peels, tea leaves—and the only way for anyone to bathe was to fill a bucket with cold water. In a country where workers normally suppress their complaints for fear of getting fired, employees at this factory couldn’t resist telling us the truth. “We work so hard for so little pay,” said one middle-aged woman with undisguised anger. We could only guess how hard—the place kept no time cards. Painted in large characters on the factory walls was a slogan: “If you don’t work hard today, look hard for work tomorrow.” Inspirational, in a way.

I was there because, six years ago, I had a job at a Los Angeles firm that specialized in the field of “compliance consulting,” or “corporate social responsibility monitoring.” It’s a service that emerged in the mid-1990s after the press started to report on bad factories around the world and companies grew concerned about protecting their reputations. With an increase of protectionist sentiment in the United States, companies that relied on cheap labor abroad were feeling vulnerable to negative publicity. They still are. (See “Disney Taking Heat Over China” in the Los Angeles Times this March.)

Read the rest of this story ...

1 comments

---

Like so many other aspects of Wal-Mart’s business model, the cheap food Wal-Mart sells comes with hidden costs. This story from the International Herald Tribune lays out how the global food trade is bad for the planet, and ultimately for the economy too. Is it Wal-Mart’s fault? Not entirely, but the retailer is definitely part of the problem and a big roadblock on the path to solution.

Putting pollution on grocery bills [International Herald Tribune]

Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Spanish Citrus Coast as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of the peas in Europe are grown and packaged in Kenya.

In the United States, FreshDirect.com proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of the national fruit of New Zealand, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.

Food has moved around the world since Europeans discovered tea in China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but also, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.

Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. And the penetration of megamarkets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe - like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco - has accelerated the trend.

But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution, especially carbon dioxide, from transporting the food.

Read the rest of this story ...