Big Promises, Low Prices

I was fascinated to read about Adam Werbach, an environmental activist who was recruited to work for Walmart in 2007.  Founder of the Sierra Student Coalition, he joined the retail giant to help them realize their ambitious environmental goals.

According to the article in Fast Company, many of his former friends and associates disowned him after his controversial decision, calling him a traitor, naïve, and even issuing veiled threats.

Though lacking the personal bile of Werbach's former associates, I can respect many people’s skepticism about Walmart’s sincerity. Despite reading its public goals to eliminate waste and source 100% renewable energy, I admit that I was dubious myself.  Yet, it is hard to deny that something has changed in Bentonville Arkansas.

For example, Walmart, which boasts the most extensive supply chain in the world, has increased its fleet fuel efficiency by 69% since it has launched its initiative.  It currently sources 28% of its electricity from renewable sources and has become the nation’s leading commercial buyer of solar energy. It also has kept 80.9 % of its waste out of landfills.

Using its unequaled retail influence, Walmart has created the Sustainability Consortium, which has developed a standardized framework, called Sustainability Measurement & Reporting System(SMRS). SMRS allows Walmart to rate each of its 100,000 suppliers on their environmental and social performance. This has the intention of greening the supply chain, and by affecting companies with revenues of $1.4 trillion, this is perhaps its most powerful tool for change.

Despite its bold environmental ambitions, its labor practices remain deplorable. I commend the thousands of Walmart employees who, at risk to their own jobs, protested the unfair labor practices of their company on Black Friday. It is my hope that this corporation can begin to see that true sustainability begins with treating employees with dignity.

The work of Werbach raises an interesting issue for those of us who may work in the murky moral landscape of corporate America.  How does one affect positive environmental and social change without becoming complicit in systemic injustice that some of these corporations cause? This is a valid criticism, and one that I have personally wondered myself.

To better understand this moral question, it was helpful for me to reframe the issue. 

United States’ federal and state governments have been sources of great inspiration and good for millions at home and abroad.  Yet, they also have caused and/or been complicit in much injustice as well.  It has sanctioned slavery, extermination of Native Americans, imperialism overseas, oppression of women stateside, and currently, while purporting love of liberty, possesses the largest prison population in the world.  This is the short list.

Yet, most of us see public service is an admirable goal, even though government through its time has caused great ill. It is understood that we have responsibility to be a part of the system that we want to change.

At this point, many of you will correctly state that much social change only took place in America’s history because of strong persistent agitation by those outside the system.  This is certainly true, yet history has also shown that policy and advocacy go hand in hand.  To change government or corporations, we need people in both arenas.

People like Werbach.

With estimated annual sales of $447 billion, Walmart is the largest retailer in the world. If Walmart were a country, its economy would be the 26^th largest in the world, bigger than Austria’s.

Walmart has an opportunity to make an unprecedented impact on the way the people shop. Its unequaled buying power and ability to pressure its suppliers make it potent agent for change, if it pointed in the right direction.

True sustainability has little hope of succeeding if its only adherents are coastal liberals who drive hybrid cars, support NPR and can afford to buy from Whole Foods. If sustainability has a future, it must be mainstream and affordable for the 200 million who shop at Walmart weekly. 

I commend Werbach and others for their commitment and courage, and I hope that they succeed.