Wal-Mart Creating Eco-Ratings for Products
Filed Under: Environmental News on July 21, 2009
A couple of days ago, I talked about the Cradle to Cradle Certification program for products and processes to measure their impact on the environment. Now I’ve found out that Wal-Mart is planning to do something somewhat similar for the products they sell.
Wal-Mart is currently working on the index for those ratings, but has let their suppliers know that they will be expected to produce information on each of their products for Wal-Mart to use in these ratings. Being the largest retailer on the planet, I guess Wal-Mart can make demands like that. They already do so with their supply line, shipping, and so forth.
The program was announced on Thursday, July 16 and is in its first phase. Wal-Mart is asking suppliers to answer 12 key questions about key topics in the environmental impact of their manufacture. These include water use, emissions, and so forth. Wal-Mart has put together a consortium of 12 universities to work together on getting the scientific data and building the new design and index standards for this eco-labeling.
Ultimately, the shelves of Wal-Mart will feature labels on every product that tell consumers, at a glance, what the eco-rating of that product is and thus how much environmental impact it’s had before getting into their shopping cart.
It will be several years before this comes to fruition, but Wal-Mart seems interested in keeping the process open and transparent to the public so we’ll be able to tell whether they’re green washing or really trying to make something of this.
Most of the costs for this program will rest with suppliers, not Wal-Mart, once it’s implemented. We’ll see how well it works out. At the very least, it’s good to see the world’s largest retailer taking the lead with something like this. Perhaps it will create an ad-hoc industry standard.
