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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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]

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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]

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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A shocking new report from the Solidarity Center exposes a laundry list of worker abuse at Wal-Mart supplier shrimp processing factories in Thailand and Bangladesh. The report, titled “The Degradation of Work: The True Cost of Shrimp,” includes dozens of interviews with workers detailing “Sexual and physical abuse, debt bondage, child labor and unsafe working conditions.”

Once again, this is another sad example of Wal-Mart’s unconscionable lack of oversight of its suppliers. All it would take is more inspectors and more inspections - something Wal-Mart could easily afford. But the company simply refuses to pay the costs. Given the relentless cost-cutting pressure Wal-Mart puts on its suppliers, without proper oversight - abuses like this are all but inevitable.

And remember that in the past few years Wal-Mart has repeatedly tried to convince the public it is legitimately interested in selling sustainable seafood - and shrimp in particular.

Let’s not forget two things:

1) Sustainability doesn’t just mean plants, animals and the environment. It also means people.
2) The big talk is meaningless unless you’re investing the time and money to make sure that the changes actually happen.

*View a PDF of the full report here.

Report alleges abuse in Asia shrimp industry [CNN.com]:

Workers in Southeast Asia’s shrimp industry suffer regular abuse and sometimes live in what amounts to virtual slavery, a human-rights organization said Wednesday.

Sexual and physical abuse, debt bondage, child labor and unsafe working conditions are common in Thailand and Bangladesh’s shrimp processing factories, the Solidarity Center said in a 40-page report.

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Wal-Mart has been pushing its suppliers hard to reduce packaging, but it looks like the retailer itself would do well to reduce packaging. A Gizmodo reader wrote in to the tech website to lambaste Wal-Mart for shipping a flash drive (approximate size: 3 cubic inches) in two cardboard boxes, one bigger than the next.

Gizmodo contributor Adam writes:

This is such an idiotically easy problem to solve that would have a huge impact on the environment. Let’s start being responsible, online retailers. It’s in your hands.

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Wal-Mart is infamous for sourcing its low-cost goods from factories with lax labor standards. Despite outcries from human rights activists, the company has done little to enforce its own supplier code of conduct overseas. Wal-Mart does an incredible amount of business with China, where many of these labor infractions occur.

But a new Chinese labor law has the potential to change all that. Written in response to workers’ complaints about “companies that would stop at nothing to wring out profits,” the law aims to give laborers more power against sweatshop managers. If the law is fairly enforced, it could mean disaster for Wal-Mart, which depends on a steady supply of cheap, disposable labor in its supply chain.

New Law Gives Chinese Workers Power, Gives Businesses Nightmares [Washington Post]

DONGGUAN, China—Wei Hoqiang used to work in a toy factory that forced him to sign a contract it did not let him read. It paid him 30 cents an hour, made him work 100 days without a day off, and kept him in a room that was ice cold in winter and suffocating in summer. He said he knew he was being taken advantage of, but he was so afraid of his boss’s ire that he stayed for two years.

Wei, 31, said he knew he could do better and in early March walked out on his employer. He immediately got three job offers.

Armed with a landmark new labor contract law that went into effect Jan. 1, employees like Wei are turning the tables on employers in China.

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In Wal-Mart corporate culture, meetings sometime end with ”go do’s”, as in “What are you going to go do now?”

A recent report from the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) reveals extensive labor violations at a hosiery factory which reportedly produces for Wal-Mart.  According to the report:

“Problems included forced and excessive overtime, with many workers required to work every day of a given month, without a single day off; failure to properly compensate workers for overtime hours worked; the illegal withholding, for an extended period of time, of a substantial amount of workers’ monthly pay; failure to provide legally mandated social benefits; and run-down, unclean, and inadequate dormitory accommodations and bathrooms.”

Lee Scott has expressed that when Wal-Mart buys merchandise it realizes that the “orders touch factory workers and their communities around the world” and that Wal-Mart recognizes “that success goes beyond financial results alone.” That’s a great understanding of the problem, Lee, and it seems you know just how important Wal-Mart’s role in the global supply chain is.  Wal-Mart’s own supplier standards would find this factory noncompliant.

So here’s your “Go Do,” Lee:  Read this report from WRC.  It’s a little long, but it’s a good read.  And when you’re finished, make this factory compliant.  I know this is a lot to ask, especially on a Thursday, but these are peoples’ lives we’re talking about.  And if you need help, please call me or contact WRC.  We’re here for you.

Click here to download the whole report from WRC.  Click here to learn more about Wal-Mart’s ethical sourcing.

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As Lee Scott mentioned in a FT interview last week, Wal-Mart is spending more money than ever on marketing - and the environment is no exception. This article from PR Week examines the work behind Wal-Mart’s green message...but pays little attention to how - or if - the company is making good on its marketing.

The article makes it seem that Wal-Mart’s green initiatives are nothing more than a series of well-timed commercials and email blasts. The campaign is being headed not by an environmental organization but by an ad agency, and it encourages shoppers to consume differently, rather than consume less. The 20 million catalogs Wal-Mart plans to send out as part of the campaign won’t do much to help the environment, either, nor will the fact that most of Wal-Mart’s products are manufactured overseas. Marketing seems to take center stage here, while actionable results take a back seat. Is this the face of the modern environmental company?

The campaign - complete with a series of branded commercials and ads - also serves the convenient purpose of distracting from Wal-Mart’s chronic labor violations and poor employee treatment. This is perhaps most telling as to why Wal-Mart has become so environmental lately. For more information about Wal-Mart’s environmental practices or to join our Environmental Task Force, click here.

Wal-Mart launches month-long green campaign [PR Week]

Although Earth Day is April 22, Wal-Mart launched a month-long multimedia campaign to promote its green efforts and to encourage green shopping and other earth-friendly habits among its customers.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is using the Earth Month campaign—its largest sustainability campaign to date—to interact with customers “through advertising, in-store displays and featured products to reinforce Wal-Mart’s goal of making sustainable products available to them at prices they can afford,” said Tara Raddohl, senior communications manager at Wal-Mart, via e-mail. “The environment will be very top of mind for Wal-Mart’s customers” at this time of the year, she added.

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Wal-Mart’s new line of organic cotton clothing is a little short on cotton. The retailer announced that it will be helping mass producers make the shift to organic cotton to fulfill rising demand for organic cotton clothing. The move has the potential to keep thousands of pounds of chemical fertilizers out of the soil and water supply. Though many environmentalists cite mass production as part of the problem organics is aimed at solving, Wal-Mart’s efforts here have the potential to improve local ecologies in cotton-producing regions. The article fails to mention whether the cotton will be sourced domestically or from abroad.

Wal-Mart to boost supply of organic cotton [Reuters]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Monday that it purchased more than 12 million pounds of cotton from farmers who are changing over from conventional to organic farming, to help boost the supply of certified organic cotton in the marketplace.

“We heard from our supplier and other partners ... that this was necessary in the market,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Tara Raddohl.

Wal-Mart has been increasing the number of organic products that it offers in its stores. But because of its size as the world’s largest retailer, it needs a large and steady supply of these goods to stock its more than 4,100 U.S. stores.

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A story in today’s edition of the Northwest Arkansas Morning News details just how much fuel Wal-Mart’s trucking fleet uses every year. The company’s highly-touted environmental initiatives have mainly focused on forcing supplier companies to change their business practices. Wal-Mart has actually done very little to address its own environmentally-damaging practices, and this article is a glaring example of that. According to this article, the company spends billions of dollars on truck fuel every year, and lots of dollars translates into a lot of fuel.

This is definitely an area where Wal-Mart could apply its “Environmentalism is good for business” philosophy. Will the retailer be able to cut down its carbon emissions?

Wal-Mart Pays Big For Fuel Costs [NW Arkansas Morning News]

If consumers think they feel the pinch of rising gas prices, they can at least take some comfort that they don’t have to foot the bill for more than 6.3 billion gallons of diesel fuel.

That’s the approximate domestic fuel usage of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which also owns one of the nation’s largest private trucking fleets.

The retailer won’t say much about the impact rising diesel fuel prices are having on its fleet of 7,200 semi tractor-trailers that traveled up to 900 million miles in its most recent fiscal year. In fact, the retailer declined to comment at all on how fuel prices were impacting transportation costs for this story.

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Wal-Mart announced this environmental initiative several weeks ago, but an article in today’s Financial Times details a meeting Wal-Mart is currently planning for its Chinese suppliers. Wal-Mart intends to lay down strict environmental regulations for its suppliers overseas, but this is not the first time Wal-Mart has made such demands...with little effect. The company’s anti-sweatshop measures and product safety mandates have had little impact on how suppliers manufacture their products. Even Wal-Mart’s environmental demands in the U.S. have met serious roadblocks. Why the company believes environmental regulations will be any different is anyone’s guess.

Wal-Mart to push 1,000 Chinese suppliers to adopt green agenda [Financial Times]

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is to convene a meeting of hundreds of its Chinese suppliers to set out goals for significant reductions in the environmental impact of its vast supply chain.

Wal-Mart accounts for about 30 per cent of all foreign buying in China and just under 10 per cent of total US imports from the country, which were worth $321bn last year.

About 1,000 Chinese companies are expected to attend the Wal-Mart event in October, marking a push by the retailer to globalise a drive on environmental sustainability that has hitherto largely been focused on its US operations.

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A major part of Wal-Mart’s attempt to win back public favor was its environmental initiatives. Soon after critics began attacking Wal-Mart for its business practices in 2005, CEO Lee Scott announced a series of environmental initiatives (PDF) aimed at improving the company’s carbon footprint AND its public image. More recently, Scott has gone on the record to include Wal-Mart’s suppliers in those initiatives.

Pressure on suppliers has been a critical aspect of Wal-Mart’s plans for environmental improvement. But an article in today’s Northwest Arkansas Morning News shows that the company’s suppliers just aren’t responding the way the company had hoped. Fewer than half of Wal-Mart’s supplier companies have met demands for packaging improvements, and it doesn’t seem like they’ll be reaching Wal-Mart’s goals any time soon.

What will Wal-Mart do to remedy the situation? Cut out over half its suppliers? We think not. Perhaps Wal-Mart should make some changes to its own business model, before it starts demanding changes from its suppliers.

Suppliers struggle with scorecard [NW Arkansas Morning News]

There was a time when a deadline was a line drawn around a prison beyond which straying prisoners could be shot.

These days, it’s generally considered the latest time by which something should be completed.

In the case of Wal-Mart’s deadline for suppliers to complete a packaging scorecard, it’s a little of both. Or neither.

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Back in 2002, James W Lynn was allegedly fired for drawing a great deal of unwanted attention to certain practices taking place in Wal-Mart’s Honduran and Guatemalan factories.  Thanks to his lawsuit, we’ve have had the opportunity to review Wal-Mart’s very own “Factory Monitoring Reports.” Lucky us!

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Co-op America recently released a report titled “Guide to Ending Sweatshops” which takes a look at the problem with sweatshopsand what normal people can do about it. The report also presents alternatives to buying clothes and products from mainstream suppliers (most of whom source from sweatshops), such as buying from local vendors or sweat-free/union-made labels like No Sweat Apparel.

Naturally, Wal-Mart is featured as a prominent sweatshop user since their extensive and convoluted supply chain is everywhere. As Co-op America notes, “Wal-Mart is so huge, and sources so widely across the globe, that we could fill this whole magazine with the company’s alleged and documented sweatshop abuses.”

Read the full report here to learn how you act against sweatshops by holding corporations accountable and being a responsible shopper.