August 18th, 2009
Is Wal-Mart changing the color of commerce to green?
If you and I and all our friends and relations got together and decided to only buy certain products, or buoycott others, nobody would notice except us. But if the world’s largest wholesale shopper, Wal-Mart, does something…well, everybody in the retail and manufacturing world will take notice.
Wal-Mart is developing a sustainability measure for all the products they sell, the thousands and thousands of widgets of all kinds.
Wal-Mart has not yet officially released its Sustainability Index. But it is based on fifteen quesation about the entire life of each product from raw material to shipping.
Right now the mainstream media thinks the battle over American medical industry is a big deal. Phooey, that just affects those of us in the U.S. Wal-Mart’s sustainability index will affect shopping and manufacturing all across the planet. It could be far more effective, far faster than all the heated blather around global warming and international treaties that began back before the Kyoto Protocol was signed, or not.
Wal-Mart is working with many of their largest suppliers to develop an index that will go onto each product sold. And industry insiders are now looking to see how various manufacturers can score higher.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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