Wal-Mart, as expected, rolled out its concept of a sustainability index, which “will establish a single source of data for evaluating the sustainability of products.”
“Customers want products that are more efficient, that last longer and perform better,” said Mike Duke, Walmart’s president and CEO. “And increasingly they want information about the entire lifecycle of a product so they can feel good about buying it. They want to know that the materials in the product are safe, that it was made well and that it was produced in a responsible way.
“We do not see this as a trend that will fade. Higher customer expectations are a permanent part of the future,” Duke continued. “At Walmart, we’re working to make sustainability sustainable, so that it’s a priority in good times and in the tough times. An important part of that is developing the tools to help enable sustainable consumption.”
At the outset, the company is asking 100,000 global suppliers to answer 15 questions (pdf). Here are a few:
- Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions?
- If measured, please report the total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
- Have you set publicly available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets.
- Have you established publicly available sustainability purchasing guidelines for your direct suppliers that address issues such as environmental compliance, employment practices and product/ingredient safety?
- Do you know the location of 100 percent of the facilities that produce your product(s)?
The company said the survey “is a key first step toward establishing real transparency in our supply chain.”
As a second step, Wal-Mart is seeking to gather this data with suppliers, retailers, NGOs and government. The aim: to develop a global database of information on the lifecycle of products — from raw materials to disposal. The company will also partner with one or more leading technology companies to create an open platform that will power the index.
“It is not our goal to create or own this index,” said Duke. “We want to spur the development of a common database that will allow the consortium to collect and analyze the knowledge of the global supply chain. We think this shared database will generate opportunities to be more innovative and to improve the sustainability of products and processes.”
The third and final step will be to translate that data into a ”simple rating for consumers about the sustainability of products.”
July 16th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I don’t see questions about disposal, such as, ‘Can your product be disposed of in a sensitive way? Is it or its components reusable? Can it be recycled effectively? What provisions have you made for reclaiming toxins?’