Imagine 400 CEOs representing Walmart’s largest vendors all sitting in one room pondering the future of sustainability. Aside from representing trillions of dollars in market value, this group could change the course of history. As I observed from the third row of this gathering on Wednesday at Walmart’s Arkansas headquarters, I was both excited and scared. Excited that Lee Scott had convened this gathering to throw more weight behind the need to generate innovative “green” products, and scared that the challenge on the table was too narrowly focused.
After SCJohnson withdrew Scotchguard from the market because it was determined to contain toxic chemicals, Walmart helped the manufacturer introduce a reformulated, safer product by placing it on thousands of end caps. When Unilever was concerned that consumers wouldn’t understand its triple concentrated All laundry detergent, Walmart ensured that their customers couldn’t miss the new product in their stores by generously giving it more shelf space that it might have deserved. Walmart is committed to supporting sustainable consumer products from compact fluorescent light bulbs to organic pet bedding. This is a good, if not a great thing.
Today, Lee Scott announced that his company wanted real innovation in sustainable consumer products, not just incremental improvement. The R&D budgets of consumer products companies just got a lot more green.
Scott also proclaimed at various points in his talk that, “Sustainability is one of the most interesting things we’ve done. Sustainability is here to stay. We lay no claim to being a green company. We’re just graduating from kindergarten in this journey.” All things I was happy to hear.
And I was thrilled to see that their vendor fair highlighted not just products proclaiming to be “sustainable,” but an incredibly wide range on NGOs and consulting firms offering to help corporate America figure out what to do next. Many of these organizations wouldn’t have gotten their phone calls returned three years ago. From WWF to MBDC, the Rocky Mountain Institute, Trans Fair, Blue-Green, World Resources Institute, Act Now, the EPA, and numerous others, it was quite amazing to see Walmart highlight much of our nation’s sustainability brain trust.
But I’m not so sure Scott is right when he proclaims, “We save people money so they can live better,” and that “the (Wall Street Journal) is wrong, our business model is healthy.” Or that their new tag line, “Save money, live better,” is credible.
What scares me in this fever pitch of going green is the lack of systemic understanding of the problems we face, and the risk that some of these well-intentioned solutions are likely to make things worse. While compact fluorescents are great, too many of them are powered by coal plants. If you already own 50 t-shirts, buying another made from organic cotton will not make the world a better place. Buying CDs in recycled paperboard boxes will still create more CO2 emissions than downloading your music from the web.
While I’m glad that some of the toxic chemicals are out of Scotchguard, why were they there in the first place and do we really need a product that pollutes our indoor air?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for incremental progress, I just don’t want to see us confuse “less bad” with “good.” Or worse, “less bad” with “sustainability.”
So what’s my conclusion? It’s difficult to say. I’m a cheerleader for Walmart’s leadership and progress. But as Lee Scott said, this was a graduation ceremony from kindergarten and the toughest challenges lie ahead. The best solutions aren’t likely to produce short-term profits, and I hope everyone plans to attend first grade.