Is Wal Mart becoming a green hero?

Maybe Wal Mart isn't the most likely candidate, but yesterday I watched a truly groundbreaking webcast from their Milestone Meeting Sustainability (will be made available here). They announced that they want to set a new world standard for retail in the 21st century, and it will be a sustainable one...

As a first step they will be posing 15 questions to all their suppliers. The questions will be in the following four areas: energy and climate; material efficiency; natural resources; people and community.

As a second step Wal-Mart is providing the seed money for a consortium of universities, NGOs and other parties who would define the paramaters of a forthcoming sustainability index. Wal-Mart also invited competitors Costco, Target and Kroger to join the consortium.

The third step will be to make the information available to customers worldwide.

Wal Mart emphasized it will not be a US standard, but they are aiming for a worldwide standard.

Here are the 15 questions Wal-Mart will ask of suppliers:

Energy and Climate: Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
1. Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions?
2. Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)?
3. What is your total annual greenhouse gas emissions reported in the most recent year measured?
4. Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Material Efficiency: Reducing Waste and Enhancing Quality
1. 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.
2. Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?
3. If measured, please report total water use from facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
4. Have you set publicly available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Natural Resources: Producing High Quality, Responsibly Sourced Raw Materials
1. 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?
2. Have you obtained 3rd party certifications for any of the products that you sell to Walmart?

People and Community: Ensuring Responsible and Ethical Production
1. Do you know the location of 100 percent of the facilities that produce your product(s)?
2. Before beginning a business relationship with a manufacturing facility, do you evaluate the quality of, and capacity for, production?
3. Do you have a process for managing social compliance at the manufacturing level?
4. Do you work with your supply base to resolve issues found during social compliance evaluations and also document specific corrections and improvements?
5. Do you invest in community development activities in the markets you source from and/or operate within?

Relation with other initiatives
I'm still trying to get an idea of the major impact this can have, but I'm also wondering how their initiative will relate to other schemes. Like the Marine Steward Council, Fair Trade, organic product standards, Rainforest Alliance and Utz Certified.

So what do you think about Wal-Mart's initiative?

Source: Environmental Leader