Wal-Mart announces 'green' labelling plans

The world's biggest retailer has announced plans to label all its products with a "green rating" showing their cost to the environment.

By Tom Leonard in New York Published: 7:20PM BST 16 Jul 2009

Wal-mart, the world's biggest retailer, has announced plans to give all its products a 'green rating'
Wal-Mart, the American retail giant which owns Asda, said it will ask all 100,000 of its suppliers to provide detailed information about their water use, air pollution, packaging and any other factors that affect their carbon footprint.
Working with a group of environmental groups and academics, the firm will put the details into an indexing system which it hopes will be adopted by other retailers.

The information will be passed on to the customer in the form of an easily-understood universal rating system, a green version of a nutrition label that will tell them about a product's environmental and social sustainability.
The initiative, whichi will include ASDA, was announced in New York yesterday (thu) by Michael Duke, Wal-Mart's president and chief executive, at a "sustainability meeting" with 1,500 staff and suppliers of the company's huge discount stores.
"We have to change how we make and sell products. We have to make consumption itself smarter and sustainable," he said.
As an example of the possibilities, Paul Kelly, Asda's corporate affairs director, told the meeting about his supermarket chain's search for what he called "respectful eggs".
He said free-range eggs with a lower carbon footprint now accounted for a third of Asda's egg sales.
Wal-Mart said shoppers would not see green ratings on products for several years as it will take a long time to develop.
The company insisted there would be no exemptions and made clear that it would take a dim view of suppliers who did not comply.
Both Washington and European legislators have been discussing environmental labelling regulations. Having a retailer the size of Wal-Mart lead the way is expected to speed up the process considerably.
Critics claim that Wal-Mart has simply seen the writing on the wall and sees the initiative as a way of improving its public image.
Some sceptics have pointed out that similar, albeit smaller scale, eco-labelling attempts have had problems making scientific information comprehensible to shoppers.
But environmental experts involved in the project said that Wal-Mart is so big and powerful that it could make "sustainable consumption" catch on.
"Nobody else could pull this off," said Michelle Harvey of the Environmental Defence Fund, one of the organisations involved in creating the index.
Once condemned for its treatment of staff and hard-headed business dealings, Wal-Mart has tried to transform its public image in recent years.
It has focused heavily on the environment, announcing plans to cut energy consumption at its stores, reduce waste and promote renewable energy such as compact fluorescent bulbs.
Asda last year unveiled plans to spend £10 million on lowering prices from reducing wasteful packaging on its own-brand products.