{"id":1694,"date":"2005-10-21T21:27:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-21T21:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2005\/10\/21\/the-great-great-wal-mart-turnaround\/"},"modified":"2005-10-21T21:27:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-21T21:27:00","slug":"the-great-great-wal-mart-turnaround","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/the-great-great-wal-mart-turnaround\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great, Great Wal-Mart Turnaround?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit that I was <a href=\"http:\/\/sustainablog.blogspot.com\/2005\/07\/green-wal-mart-step-forward-or.html\">pretty surprised<\/a> when Wal-Mart announced it was experimenting with renewable energy at stores in Texas and Colorado, and was quick to assume greenwashing. Now, Joel Makower <a href=\"http:\/\/makower.typepad.com\/joel_makower\/2005\/10\/walmart_yanks_i.html\">responds<\/a> to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nwaonline.net\/articles\/2005\/10\/21\/news\/regional\/01azretailconference.txt\">new announcement by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott<\/a> that the company &#8220;&#8230;was going to be paying a lot closer attention to the environmental and labor standards of its overseas supply chain.&#8221; Joel remains skeptical (as well he should), but also notes at least one case of a Wal-Mart watcher claiming this is a sincere move by the company. Quite frankly, I can&#8217;t see how Wal-Mart could adopt policies for sustainable sourcing without completely revamping its business plan, as their &#8220;falling prices&#8221; mantra depends on cheap overseas labor, primarily from China, and lax environmental regulation. But if they were to only make adjustments similar to those by Nike (another company that&#8217;s faced similar pressure from activists), the repercussions would be enormous. I still don&#8217;t plan to shop at Wal-Mart anytime soon, but I may have to consider moving from a position of total dismissal to one of slightly hopeful skepticism&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Categories: <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/wal-mart\" rel=\"tag\">wal-mart<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/suppliers\" rel=\"tag\">suppliers<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/environment\" rel=\"tag\">environment<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/labor\" rel=\"tag\">labor<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/business\" rel=\"tag\">business<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/sustainability\" rel=\"tag\">sustainability<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I must admit that I was pretty surprised when Wal-Mart announced it was experimenting with renewable energy at stores in Texas and Colorado, and was quick to assume greenwashing. Now,&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Great, Great Wal-Mart Turnaround? &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/the-great-great-wal-mart-turnaround\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Great, Great Wal-Mart Turnaround? &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I must admit that I was pretty surprised when Wal-Mart announced it was experimenting with renewable energy at stores in Texas and Colorado, and was quick to assume greenwashing. 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