Wal-Mart Steps Up Green Plans
Source: Packaging Digest

02/02/07 | US retailer Wal-Mart, which owns Asda in the UK, is set to encourage suppliers staff and customers to reduce their carbon footprints through a new initiative called Sustainability 360.

Speaking at the Prince of Wales' Business and the Environment Programme held in London last night, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said the retailer would introduce Global Innovation Projects to challenge staff and suppliers to think about how to remove non-renewable energy from the products the company sells.

“Perhaps the most far-reaching opportunity we have with our suppliers is a simple idea with potentially profound consequences,” he said.

“What if we worked with our suppliers to take non-renewable energy off our shelves and out of the lives of our customers? We could create metrics and share best practices so our suppliers could make products that rely less and less on carbon-based energy.”

Wal-Mart will also work with its suppliers to reduce packaging by 5% by 2013 - a move estimated to save 324,000 tonnes of coal and 67 millions gallons of diesel a year.

This week Asda announced a trial to remove all packaging from most fresh produce at two stores in north west England. It has also stopped selling monkfish in its stores because it is concerned about the overfishing of monkfish stocks.

“We need to be sustainable companies and countries made up of people who live sustainable lives. If we do that, if we do it throughout the coming decades, I believe we will make sustainability sustainable,” Scott added.

Originally posted on www.thegrocer.co.uk