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After a morning dish of its sustainable hype, Walmart unveiled plans to develop a worldwide sustainable product index during a July 16, 2009 conference meeting with 1,500 of its suppliers, associates and sustainability leaders at its home office. They tout that the index will establish a single source of data for evaluating the sustainability of products.

Customers want products that are more efficient, that last longer and perform better,” said Mike Duke, Walmart’s president and CEO. “And increasingly they want information about the entire lifecycle of a product so they can feel good about buying it. They want to know that the materials in the product are safe, that it was made well and that it was produced in a responsible way.
We do not see this as a trend that will fade. Higher customer expectations are a permanent part of the future,” Duke continued. “At Walmart, we’re working to make sustainability sustainable, so that it’s a priority in good times and in the tough times. An important part of that is developing the tools to help enable sustainable consumption.”

The survey includes 15 questions that will serve as a tool for Walmart’s 100,000+ global suppliers to then evaluate their own sustainability efforts. The questions will focus on four areas: energy and climate; material efficiency; natural resources, and; people and community. Their U.S. suppliers will be asked to complete the survey by October 1st; Walmart will develop timelines for the rest of the world on a country-by-country basis. While it’s good to have the largest corporate retailer leading the pack in such a global sustainable shift, could there be cracks in this plan?

“The survey will include simple but powerful questions covering familiar territory, such as the location of our suppliers’ factories, along with new areas like water use and solid waste,” said John Fleming, chief merchandising officer, Walmart U.S. “The questions aren’t complicated but we’ve never before systematically asked for this kind of information. The survey is a key first step toward establishing real transparency in our supply chain.”

As a second step, Walmart will help create a consortium of universities to collaborate with suppliers, retailers, NGOs and government to develop a global database of information on the lifecycle of products — from raw materials to disposal. Walmart provided the initial funding for the Sustainability Index Consortium, and invited all retailers and suppliers to contribute.

Consumers will have, in theory, an eco-rating on the sustainability of products, their quality and history, and provide customers with product transparency unavailable today. Other retailers Walmart has invited to the party include Target, Best Buy, Costco, and Kroger.

Read the remarks from Walmart’s Mike Duke here.

Get Greenbiz.com’s take on Walmart’s Sustainability Index, click here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Green Growth, Green Street. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.