Wal Mart is the largest retail store in the world with its stores spread across the globe and have more than 6000 stores. They have long been criticized on various aspects like low wages, gender discrimination, environmental issues, inadequate health coverage etc.

Environmental issues concerning a wide spectrum of things like replacing forests with concrete stores, footpaths and parking lots, improper handling and storage of pesticides that have polluted stream waters, contaminating water due to leakage in petroleum tanks etc. After being repeatedly penalized by government agencies at various points of time, Wal – Mart has finally woken up to take some action. Last October, CEO Lee Scott had said, “As one of the largest companies in the world, with an expanding global presence, environmental problems are our problems.” It is perhaps one of the biggest challenges that Wal- Mart faces as a retailer that is to continue creating value for their customers as well as minimizing their footprint on the environment.

Wal-Mart has set out some really ambitious green goals for itself. It has adopted a 3 pronged strategy to achieve its goals which is:

i) Using 100% renewable energy
It wants to increase the efficiency of its existing stores by 25% in 7 years.
It wants to make its new stores 30% more efficient in 4 years

ii) Zero waste policy
It wants to reduce solid waste by 25% in 3 years
It wants to improve private brand packaging in 2 years

iii) Selling Environmentally Sustainable and Affordable Products
It wants to have 20% supply base aligned in 3 years
It wants to design and support a green company program in China

These actions are based on the approach to conserve energy and resources required to operate a store; reduce raw materials needed for construction and to use renewable materials throughout the facility.

Some action points that Wal-Mart has set out for itself are:
i) For every acre of land used by Wal-Mart, they are preserving one acre of natural habitat.
ii) They want to reduce the size of packaging and increase the use of recycled materials.
iii) By replacing all bulbs in the ceiling fans in their stores they would have saved 7$ million per year
iv) By replacing Wal-Mart truck fleet is the largest in the world and they have a goal to reach 25% efficiency by:
a.) Lighter and aerodynamic trailers
b.) More fuel efficient engines and adding Auxillary Power Units
c.) Fuel efficient tyres
d.) Hybrid Drive Systems
e.) Minimising empty trucks on roads by loading them with materials to be recycled/return
They estimate this entire exercise would save them 277$ million per year apart from reducing Wal- Mart’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The reality is that even if Wal Mart cuts down on its emissions in its existing stores, the number of upcoming stores will soon exceed the amount that they are going to reduce. This would hence diminish the efficiency of their stores because of the total environment footprint. The space utilization in these stores as well is not the best and as and when the stores grow the initial area is closed and moved to a bigger location. Definitely, Wal-Mart needs strict scrutiny owing to its massive size and influence on world economy.

No doubt, they have taken a first step towards going green, only time can determine whether the vision for a greener Wal-Mart will become a reality or not. Because there are definitely a lot more environmental aspects that Wal-Mart needs to act upon to actually make a lot more significant positive impact.

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Wal-Mart Cleans Up Act on Environment in Asia