Wal-Mart to label products with eco ratings

Wal-Mart wants its suppliers to help it get greener.

The retail giant plans to announce on Thursday that it will ask its suppliers to provide environmental information on all products carried in its stores. Wal-Mart Stores will use that information to label each item with an eco rating, designed to measure its environmental friendliness.

"We have to change how we make and sell products," Michael T. Duke, Wal-Mart's president and chief executive, plans to tell about 1,500 suppliers and employees on Thursday at a "sustainability meeting," according to a copy of his prepared remarks, quoted in The New York Times. "We have to make consumption itself smarter and sustainable."

To kick off the program, Wal-Mart will ask its suppliers to answer about 12 questions for each item. The questions are designed to determine how the product was made, how it was packaged, and what elements or ingredients were used to manufacture it.

Wal-Mart will then tap into a database and metrics to calculate the "greenness" of a product and translate that information into a ratings system for consumers.

The company will partner with a consortium of about 12 universities to collect the data and set new design standards. Professor Jay Golden of the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University will function as co-director of the new consortium.

The universities will work directly with suppliers to determine each product's environmental impact, from how it uses raw materials to if and how it can be recycled.

Talks have already been held in Washington about possible new regulations for environmental labeling. But Golden says having Wal-Mart lead the way will "move it so much faster."

Wal-Mart plans to announce further details about the program on Thursday. But the initiative is clearly important to the company.

The eco-rating system is just the latest effort by Wal-Mart to create a greener landscape. The company has already strived to make its own stores environmentally friendly, including a plan to tap into solar power. Wal-Mart has also driven an effort to create more sustainable electronics devices to reduce the amount of items dumped into landfills.

[carlhage]

Wal-mart could help consumers out a lot if they would just post the power consumption for all plug-in electronics. I measured my cordless phone with a power meter and figured it will cost me $80 in wasted electricity. I should throw it in the garbage and get a more efficient one, but I have no way to know if the phone would cost me $2 or $100 in electricity.

[dgoshilla]

This is brilliant. I'm curious to know how the rating system will be calculated. That is key.

[shootfirst]

LOL. Just get an old rotary phone if you care so much about wasted energy. If you buy a product with an LED screen and light up touch tone buttons it is going to take up electricity. You should look at how much electricity is wasted on cell phones. Do you have any idea all the electricity we waste to power the backbone of the communication systems we use every day? Its nice how you never managed to state the wasted energy over a period of time.

Walmart should focus more on the quality of the products that they sell and not bother with this green crap. Manufacturers will lie to get better ratings, how will they be caught? Honestly do people ask how green the items are when they buy them? If they are they have too much free time. You are not ever going to get something that is energy efficient and real good quality unless you pay for it and Walmart is not where people go to get efficient, quality, expensive items, they go there to get budget conscious items.

[martin1212]

Well I care. When I bought a new TV one thing I researched was the power consumption, both active and idle. I was disappointed that it was so hard to find, in the end it was actually CNET that had the best comparative listings. It's not the only criterion, but if two products are similar it can be a decider. Having power consumption displayed in store is a good idea. In fact is already done for items like refrigerators, why not for electronics? You stop them lying by having independent testing. (Duh.)

Also a very strange argument that you think people who care have too much free time. If the information is posted on the product it takes next to no time to check it, and can save considerable money in the long run.

[svgtom]

So now Wal-Mart is going to demand something else from their suppliers. It sounds like this will increase production costs which could result in more layoffs, more jobs moving overseas, etc.

[sonopasquale]

WalMart gets most of their products from overseas now. I like to see the Chinese agree (truthfully) to these requirements.

[Spanwite]

svgtom, you a caveman!
It's just information, paperwork 1x made. I like to know how much power my next fridge is using compare my old one and to the others in the shopping process.
This is very old in Europe, and it is a big selling tool, if one company has a more greener "device" as the competitor at a similar price, it sells much better.
And we don't need a new power plant in Your backyard! Or Nuclear plant waste stored in your basement for the next thousand years! We know you don't care, in your Hummer!

[catbutt5]

I don't shop at Walmart, but I'd love to see just how far their "how it's made" breakdown goes...
I'd love to see a tag that said: "This product was built with slave labor: e.g. people paid less than one US dollar per day, enjoy."

[kimchiburrito]

walmart is finally realizing they have some image problem.....:)

[scottthesculptor]

But will it translate in a change of buying habits for Walmart shoppers?
I think not.
The Walmart mentality is to pay the least no matter what the social consequences.
Them *and* their customers.

[streamline35]

That's great and all, but the real problem is that anyone who gives half of a crap about the environment probably already avoids walmart like the plague.

[Kringles_Helper]

*True*

[eeee]

Cannot trust WMart esp since they are pushing any responsibility for this onto the Chinese manufacturers who make the majority of their hard goods. Many feel WMart is not a good neighbor nor good for the USA

[eeee]

Arizona is a RIght Top Work state (tough to get a worker's union started in Arizona; WMart is vehemently anti union as evidence that they would rather close a WMart (as they did in Texas and Canada) and put hundreds on the unemployment line, than accept a union.
Workers in Texas butcher shop of a Super WMart unionized and soon after WMart declared the busy busy store as "unprofitable" and closed it as a message to unioniization. CEO Scotty was a tyrant

[Kringles_Helper]

We'll have to watch this! Since I don't much trust Wal-Mart as far as corporations go, I'm wondering if this is going to be similar to how the "organic" label was corrupted by the corporate food corporations (labeling that GMO poison as organic, etc.)...

[gerbercon]

I would be very skeptical of it.
For example, would they label the gasoline depending on where it was produced?
if it was produced from tar sands in Canada it would require 5 barrels of water and 3 barrels of natural gas to produce 1 barrel of oil, as compared to Saudi Arabia light sweet crude, which requires less energy to produce and refine. Also it seems like nobody wants to clean up after the mess they leave in Alberta, so would that be taken into account too?