Update on Wal-Mart's Green Efforts

I have written a couple of times regarding Wal-Mart's efforts to become more green, or at least to appear to consumers that they truly are more green and really do care about the environment. Just today I read an article grist.com's Stacy Mitchell that claims that Wal-Mart is still not green. The idea behind the article is that Wal-Mart chose the green approach to win over people who had soured over Wal-Mart's image and never really had any intentions of enacting real change.

Over the past 5 to 7 years, the corporate offices of Wal-Mart has sent out notice after notice of how wonderful their green efforts are but are, according to Mitchell, actually goals and not achievements. It apparently has worked since the unfavorable image of Wal-Mart that was at 38% in 2005 sits at 20% in 2010.

Mitchell's criticism is not only directed at Wal-Mart but is also directed at the media which, he claims has given Wal-Mart a public relations boost with little to no accountability. One example that Mitchell gives on this lack of accountability is in Wal-Mart's claim that it has been involved in utilizing renewable green energy. It seems that there have been thousands of articles and blog posts regarding this very issue but when Mitchell set out to find the answer for the total amount of renewable energy sources being used by Wal-Mart he had to dig to find out that Wal-Mart only uses 2% of its total energy consumption through renewable sources such as wind or solar.

In 2005, Wal-Mart faced huge obstacles in growth going forth and much of the resistance came from large environmental groups, but then the fanfare began and the PR campaign of just how green Wal-Mart was going to be vs. what it actually did and many of those environmentalists seemed to be placated. What has happened since then? Take a look at the phenomenal growth of Wal-Mart and ask yourself if a tripling in growth is really good for the environment.

That's right. According to Mitchell, since 2005, Wal-Mart sells 35% more stuff in the United States and has seen its international store count grow from about 1600 stores to 4500. Before the green initiatives, do you think this had any chance of success? Mitchell concludes that the very growth, the sprawl of big business has been totally ignored and that people are just ignoring the impact that this sprawl is having on the fragile environment.

Mitchell wrote a series of articles regarding the Wal-Mart connection to environmentalism and its huge growth since doing so. You can read it at this link.