Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 2007 Sustainability Report

From the introduction:

"Just over two years ago, Hurricane Katrina struck the United States. For the people of the Gulf Coast, it was a devastating event that forever changed the lives of thousands. In a different way, it also changed Wal-Mart forever. Hurricane Katrina showed us our potential to serve our customers, our Associates and our communities by applying our business model to solving major problems. In October 2005, motivated by our experience with the Katrina disaster, we committed to a set of environmental and other goals in a speech titled “Twenty-First Century Leadership.”

This report reviews and discusses our efforts to date. This letter focuses specifically on the environment, health care, diversity, sourcing and the work of our foundation. As you will see, we are making good progress in a number of these areas, while in others we still have work ahead of us. We are also working to establish performance metrics and determine our performance baselines to measure and drive our progress. As we do that, we remain committed to our journey toward building a more sustainable Wal-Mart.

Like everything we do, sustainability begins with our customers. From the day that Sam Walton opened the doors of the first Wal-Mart store in 1962, our mission has been to save people money so they can live better. Today that mission extends to sustainability. We don’t believe that our customers, whether they shop in a Todo Dia, ASDA store, Wal-Mart Supercenter or Sam’s Club, should have to choose between products they can afford and products that are ethically sourced, high quality and environmentally friendly.

We have found that there is no conflict between our business model of everyday low costs and everyday low prices and being a more sustainable business. To make sustainability sustainable at Wal-Mart, we’ve made it live inside our business. Many of our environmental sustainability efforts, for example, mean cost savings for us, our suppliers and our customers, so that in both good times and bad times, they will remain part of who we are."

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