Is Wal-Mart Really A ‘Green’ Company?

Over the past 40 years, Wal-Mart has contributed significantly to the degradation of the environment. Then, two years ago, McKinsey and Company advised Wal-Mart to do the following: “Take a proactive stance: shape the external debate by becoming a role model on a significant societal issue.” [August 2004 McKinsey Memo] Since then, Wal-Mart has taken some commendable steps to clean up its impact on the environment, promising to reduce food product packaging, sell more energy efficient light bulbs, and improve fuel efficiency in its trucking fleet. However, as the following facts show, Wal-Mart’s massive size and its voracious need for growth mean that the company’s current green efforts are to the health of the planet what cleaning one store is to its global maintenance operations.