Walmart

Wal-Mart CEO lays out ambitious social and environmental goals for his company

Yesterday, Wal-Mart CEO gave a fairly amazing speech, assessing the company’s progress on its social and environmental goals and laying out some extremely ambitious plans for the future. A taste: He then laid out sweeping plans for the company on several health and environmental issues, and he hinted that even more ambitious goals might be […]

The latest green partnership

Dave posted earlier about the new green cleaning line from Clorox and his combined reaction of happy feelings and “how will greens spin this into suckage.” But wait, it gets better: Wal-Mart is investing big time in the Clorox product line. Check this quote from a Wal-Mart press release: “Wal-Mart’s support of Green Works has […]

Wal-Mart pushes electronics suppliers to rate their products by eco-friendliness

Wal-Mart is giving its electronics suppliers a scorecard on which they can rate their products on green qualities like durability and ease of recycling. That’s tricky, of course, given the lack of a national standards for such things — so it’s pushing for that, too. Given Wal-Mart’s size, I won’t be surprised if it single-handedly […]

Cheap, possibly green PC hot item at Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has always been a place of consumer frenzy at the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and this year is no exception. What's different is that one of the items flying off the shelf faster than they can restock it is the "Everex gPC," a cheap (less than $200) desktop computer.

Clinton’s push for sustainable development dismissed by World Bank prez

The opening plenary was fascinating. Clinton explained how CGI commitments had already avoided 20,000,000 tons of greenhouse gases. Then he tried to get Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, to realize that the "Bank can show people options for sustainable development."

Zoellick, however, was full of little more than platitudes, saying we need to address "questions of adaptation and mitigation," and noting that there is a sensitivity in the developing world that climate change funds will come at the expense of development -- totally missing Clinton's point that green development is the only winning path (and Gore's point that global warming, left unchecked, will negate all other efforts aimed at development).

Clinton, however, persisted -- especially after H. Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart, touted his various successes:

A new article examines enviro Adam Werbach’s decision to work with Wal-Mart

The cover story in the latest issue of Fast Company is a long chin-scratcher about enviro-wunderkind Adam Werbach’s decision to go to work for Wal-Mart. Is he selling out? Is he part of a new wave of more pragmatic environmentalism? Will he change Wal-Mart or will it change him? The article references (though does not, […]

Whole Foods CEO secretly hearts Wal-Mart

In January 2005, a poster on a Yahoo message board made a bold prediction on how Whole Foods stock would fare. “13 years from now Whole Foods will be a $800+ stock,” he insisted, adding that “the company is going to keep on strongly growing for another 10+ years.” Looking at the company’s stock chart […]

Sheddy Mercury

Wal-Mart to cut mercury content in compact fluorescent bulbs As energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs move their way into the mainstream, concerns about their mercury content are spiraling up too. Soon, however, consumers will be able to find less-toxic CFLs for always low prices. Yes, Wal-Mart announced yesterday that its bulb suppliers will reduce mercury […]

All about lighting

The WorldWatch Institute discusses a burst of new efforts from various and sundry governments to ban incandescent bulbs. Wal-Mart is using its considerable monopsony powers for good, forcing its suppliers to substantially reduce the amount of mercury in CFL bulbs. (Cool about the Wal-Mart solar buy too, huh?) CFL schmeeFL. LEDs are coming on strong!