t’s probably the last company that you’d think of as going green.96 As the world’s largest retailer with more than 8,400 stores globally, Walmart moves massive amounts of products and uses massive amounts of power and other resources to operate its business. But it’s also striving to transform itself into a company that’s seen as environmentally friendly. That’s why the company’s announcement that it would cut some 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain—the equivalent of removing more than 3.8 million cars from the road for a year—got widespread attention. This announcement came a few months after the company said that it would be creating a sustainability index of just how green its products are. The first part of Walmart’s three- phase plan was getting information from its more than 100,000 suppliers using a 15- question survey about their greenhouse gas emissions, water and solid waste reduction efforts, and other details about business practices. That information was received by October 2009, and the second-phase process of entering it into a massive database began. The third phase involves getting all that data eventually condensed into an easily understood universal rating system, similar to a nutrition label but focused on details about environmental and social sustainability. However, it’s likely that this effort won’t be complete until 2013. This isn’t the company’s first push toward being green. Walmart has started many environmental initiatives in recent years including improving the efficiency of its truck fleet and working with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, which produces DVDs, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating the plastic knob in the center of its CD cases. The most difficult part of this latest green initiative has been persuading its suppliers to spend the time and money tracking and lessening their environmental impact. Essentially, suppliers are being asked to “examine the carbon lifecycle of their products, from the raw materials used in manufacturing all the way through to the recycling phase.” Although supplier participation was not mandatory, Walmart made it clear that it was interested in doing business only with suppliers that shared its goals. The company is also collaborating with organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund, ClearCarbon, the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas, and the Carbon Disclosure Project. These groups will advise Walmart and its suppliers and help in evaluating and measuring reductions.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 Green management is often described as that management initiative during which the underlying focus and aim is to gradually but constantly improve the inspiration of environmental management It enta... View the full answer