Can Walmart Save The Planet?

Yes…with a little help from our friends.

There is no fundamental reason why capitalism has to trash the planet. Not if you “value” human health and the environment in some balanced way along with profits.

Enter the Environmental Defense Fund. EDF has launched new energy and environmental initiativesto help large corporations address the growing global environmental and energy challenges we’re facing as the human population grows to 10 billion.

Whether it was convincing McDonald’s to use recycled and sustainable packaging, or encouraging AT&T to implement greater water efficiency, EDF has made a business case for moving giants like Walmart in a more sustainable direction.

Over 10 years ago, EDF persuaded FedEx to begin switching their delivery vehicles to hybrid-electric. FedEx is a massive operation using about 47,000 vehicles and 700 aircraft to deliver 4 million packages every day. So to embark on a long-term plan to replace their internal combustion engines with hybrid-electric powertrains was no mean feat. But it does decrease particulate emissions by 90% and reduce smog-causing emissions by 75% while increasing fuel efficiency by 50%.

FedEx recently added the first all-electric parcel delivery truck in the United States to its fleet. Following suit, Walmart bought the industry’s first hybrid tractor-trailer delivery truck.

Consumer products contain tens of thousands of chemicals, with more entering the marketplace each year. Many chemicals are now detected routinely in indoor air, food, drinking water, house dust and – most disturbingly – our bodies. The Environmental Defense Fund has patiently been learning the capitalistic ropes and showing giant companies, like Walmart, Target, AT&T and FedEx, how to reduce their energy use and the amounts of toxic chemicals in their products – while making even more money at the same time. Source: EDF

Founded in 1967, EDF seeks to “preserve the natural systems on which all life depends. Guided by science and economics, we find practical and lasting solutions to the most serious environmental problems.”

Since this is America, EDF makes clever use of capitalistic principles. And no one embodies capitalism like Walmart. But it’s not that Walmart, or any other company for that matter, doesn’t care about the environment. It’s that they need to make money. That’s the job of a corporation.

Corporations are not in the business to save the world. That’s the job of people and responsible government. But we can show companies how to not trash the Earth and still make plenty of money.

As described by Nancy Buzby, Director of Marketing at EDF Corporate Partnerships, “Corporate partnerships have been a cornerstone of EDF’s approach ever since we launched our first partnership with McDonald’s 25 years ago.  We work with the world’s largest retailers to send the demand signal across the supply chain to make products more inherently sustainable.”

One way EDF presents companies with innovative practices, that actually save money, is to embed hundreds of top graduate students, or EDF Climate Corps Fellows, in these companies every summer who identify energy saving strategies.

In the seven years since the program started, EDF Climate Corps has identified CO2 emission reductions for organizations that are equivalent to taking 390,000 cars off the road, every year. On average, each Fellow finds about a million dollars in energy savings during their short tenure at a company (www.EDFClimateCorps.org).

In 2014, two EDF fellows worked with Walmart to assess energy use in supplier factories in China, finding tens of millions of dollars in energy saving opportunities.

It’s hard not to appreciate saving a million dollars while saving the planet.

EDF Climate Corps Fellows tour a Walmart supplier factory in China identifying areas and strategies to reduce energy use. In 2014, two EDF fellows found tens of millions of dollars in energy saving opportunities at Walmart supplier factories in China. Source: EDF

EDF is also working with companies like Walmart and Target to address chemicals used in the products they sell. “Consumer products contain tens of thousands of chemicals, with more entering the marketplace each year (Which toxic chemicals are in your home?). Many chemicals are now detected routinely in indoor air, food, drinking water, house dust and – most disturbingly – our bodies.”

“Some have been linked to disorders and disease, but often, the impact of these chemicals on our health does not manifest for many years. Regulatory oversight of the health and safety of these chemicals is lacking. We need a new paradigm, but not one that relies solely on improved government oversight. We need companies – all along the retail supply chain – to revolutionize how business is done” (EDF).

Target will reward manufacturers of cleaning and personal care products that publicly disclose their ingredients.

But as the world’s largest retailer, with half a million products from more than 100,000 suppliers in every one of their 11,000 stores that employ over two million people in 27 countries, Walmart has incredible power to reduce the most toxic compounds from the retail market.

Walmart’s annual revenue of $500 billion exceeds the GDP of 86% of all nations on Earth. It certainly has the power to change things dramatically.

This may all sound easy, but it certainly is not, especially for chemical products. Slight changes in chemistry can have dramatic effects on any product and most formulas are years in the making. Maybe a small positive change in chemistry suddenly makes a beauty product not smell as good or feel as good on the skin. The whole product line could fail overnight.

“We’re pushing companies to embrace a better way of managing product chemistry. It’ll provide long-term competitive advantage because it’s about managing supply risk and maintaining marketplace relevancy, but working on product chemistry is hard. When you work on other environmental issues, such as energy efficiency or packaging reduction, you see tangible savings early and you’re not affecting the core of the product. With safer chemical ingredients, you’re likely asking a supplier to fundamentally change a product that the market has already embraced. It’s the right thing to do from a human health standpoint, but it’s a much bigger challenge than changing light bulbs in a factory.” - Boma Brown West, EDF Manager for Consumer Health.

Companies can find lessons learned and tools for tackling chemicals through one of EDF’s new corporate partnership initiatives, Behind the Label: The Blueprint for Safer Chemicals in the Marketplace.

I really never thought I’d hear the words Walmart, sustainability and theenvironment in the same sentence. But EDF’s patience has paid off. In fact, some sort of institutional threshold has been passed and now there’s a “race to the top” by many large companies to demonstrate how sustainable they are.

“EDF opened our office in Bentonville, AR, in 2007,” says Michelle Mauthe Harvey, EDF Director for Supply Chain. “My first meeting was about chemicals of concern, and for the next six years, EDF made the case that safer chemistry in products was a big gap in Walmart’s leadership on sustainability. But during that time, we also learned the business of retail, helped Walmart build tracking and monitoring tools, provided in-depth information and analysis on product chemicals, especially emerging science, and framed business strategies that would meet the needs of communities, the environment, and Walmart. The collaboration and long-term commitment paid off – Walmart announced their sustainable chemistry policy for home and personal care products in September 2013. Since then, EDF has been actively engaged with Walmart on policy implementation , because successful implementation is the best path for expanding to more categories, which means even greater long-term reductions in chemical exposures.”

Most importantly, this movement involves a lot of money.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates the total products affected by this new paradigm could top $100 billion in just the next year. In ten years, it could exceed one trillion dollars – a fifth of America’s total retail sales.

Sustainability will change the way we do business around the world.