Katrina efforts inspire Wal-Mart to launch green campaign
By Ed Egger
Inside Tucson Business
In September 2005, after Hurricane Katrina
struck the Gulf Coast, Wal-Mart sent 1,900
truckloads of water and other emergency supplies
into the area and contributed $17 million to the
relief effort, plus another $3 million in merchandise.
These efforts energized employees and made them
feel good, said Doug McMillon, president and CEO
of Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club membership stores, who
was in Tucson this month to speak at the Global
Retailing Conference put on by the University of
Arizona’s Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing.
"We had stores there some of which are still
not open yet today and we had associates who
were isplaced," McMillon said. "After that, we
began to think about how we could apply
ourselves in a way so we could feel good all the time."
That was the birth of what Wal-Mart is calling
its environmental sustainability program.
The company is taking a go-slow attitude in terms of touting the effort.
McMillon told a story of how Wal-Mart had tried
to encourage its employees to be healthier
through "personal systainability plans" by
lowering weight, stopping smoking or otherwise
adapting healthier lifestyles. But, he said, CBS
News questioned the company’s motives, calling it "greenwashing."
Finally, he said, employees came to the
company’s rescue with a video they had created
showing they were "real people with real
programs." McMillon said 400,000 Wal-Mart
employees now have their own personal systainability plans.
McMillon is quick to note two things about
Wal-Mart’s environmental sustainability efforts:
• Wal-Mart is still a business interested
in growth.
• Wal-Mart has a long way to go before it is a "green" company.
But, he said, Wal-Mart is serious about "making
decisions that would have less impact on the
environment" while, at the same time, resulting in lower costs.
"Sustainability is really about people some
who are not born yet who are going to need this planet," McMillon said.
Its goals for environmental sustainability are
three-fold: eliminate waste, use 100 percent
renewable energy and use packaging that is more environmentally friendly.
Contact reporter Ed Egger at
eegger@azbiz.com
or (520) 295-4238. |