Report: Wal-Mart a Long Way From Being Sustainable

In October 2005, Wal-Mart announced a plan to enact wide-sweeping measures aimed at making the world's largest retailer a "good steward for the environment."  Yet six years later, Wal-Mart has barely made a dent in cutting the massive amounts of carbon pollution it emits each year - equivalent to the 80th most polluting country in the world, never mind corporation.

The Sierra Club recently released "What is Wal-Mart's True Environmental Footprint?" (PDF), a new report that outlines the fundamental contradictions between Wal-Mart’s business model and environmental sustainability.

The report shows that Wal-Mart's emissions, while inching down in recent years, aren't decreasing fast enough to hit the company's goals. The centerpiece of Wal-Mart's sustainability plan in the short-term is its pledge to cut carbon emissions at its stores, clubs and distribution centers by 20 percent by 2012 (as compared to 2005 emissions). Despite this goal, emissions from Wal-Mart’s operations have remained relatively stable over the past several years in the U.S., dumping around 15 million metric tons of carbon pollution into the air each year. And as the global economy continues to dig out of the recession, emissions cuts will become even more difficult to achieve.

The reality is that Wal-Mart's minor pollution cuts are dwarfed by several unsustainable features of its business model that make substantial cuts in carbon pollution nearly impossible to achieve.  These include its reliance on energy intensive 24-hour operations, store locations outside of urban cores and product sourcing from countries like China that are thousands of miles away and rely on carbon-intensive manufacturing sectors.

Here's a snapshot of Wal-Mart's unsustainable practices by the numbers:

Lighting and Energy Usage
Wal-Mart's Supercenters use a tremendous amount of energy due to their massive size and a large number of 24-hour operations.  Even after a 15 percent cut in daily energy use, one Wal-Mart Supercenter would still use as much energy as 1,095 homes.

Shipping and Sourcing
Wal-Mart's sourcing model relies on products from countries like China that have low labor costs and less carbon efficient manufacturing.  This practice exacerbates the fact that the U.S. is already the world's leading importer of carbon emissions, while China is the world’s leading carbon exporter.

Transportation
As big-box stores like Wal-Mart continue to expand and open up outside of urban cores, Americans are driving more miles to run errands and go shopping.  The average American household now drives more than 3,100 miles per year on shopping-related trips - pumping more carbon pollution into our air and negating many of the gains that Wal-Mart claims to be making.

Wal-Mart's modest environmental initiatives have so far failed to make any significant cuts in the massive amounts of carbon pollution associated with its operations.  Without major changes to their business model, Wal-Mart's major sustainability goals will remain out of reach.

-- Margrete Strand Rangnes, Deputy Director of the Blue Green Alliance, and Sierra Club Senior Washington Representative for Trade, Labor & Worker's Rights.

Comments

[Ben Benjabutr]

I'm agree that sourcing from China creates huge amount of carbon emission every year due to more extensive transportation activities. Anyway, Walmart can reducing carbon emission by avoiding air transportation which creates highest level carbon emission, select "Green" transportation provider and conduct suppliers audit in China.