Wal*Mart Using Sustainable On It's Website: Serious Statement or Greenwashing Rhetoric?
It seems to me that the word sustainable has become so over-used that it is now basically a meaningless term. One company that I feel is exploiting the term is Wal*Mart. Apparently they have gotten so much negative publicity, they are trying to paint a new image for themselves. On their corporate website they have created what they call a Sustainable Values Network. Many of the things they have set goals for sound great, but given their business model and globalization philosophy they seem impossible.
There are many problems that I have with Wal*Mart (perhaps more in the future), but one that my community is currently
experiencing is their poor development practices. They currently have a smaller store on the far east end of Ashland. Now they are clearing acres of woods and meadows for a new Super Wal*Mart, instead of remodeling their current building or building in an already developed area. 
Land Being Cleared for Ashland's new Super-Sized Wal*MartAccording to Wal*Mart's realty website this is common practice because they have hundreds of older buildings for sale or lease. How can Wal*Mart imply they are looking at ways to reduce waste when they continue to clear farmland, meadows, forests, and wetlands to build a new store while their old ones sit empty?
Wal*Mart's example of a wetland/retention pond (notice the diversity of plants and animals)Call me a skeptic, but I just don't get how a company centered around waste and greed can ever become, for the lack of a better word, sustainable.
posted by BurdockBoy @ 3:34 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
I agree. I'm skeptical of all things Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart's Sustainable Values Network is no more than a PR con. Coorporate appearance is almost always tied to profits, not reality.
For example,the photograph of the walrus you left comment on at my blog actually won a very prestigious wildlife photography award (prestigious because there's a lot of money supporting it) - The Shell Wildlife Photography Award. I refuse to note more than the photographer's name on my site, because the award seems like such an oxymoron. It's a PR con.
I put Wal-Mart's attempts at sustainable values in the same category of deception.
Wal-Mart just bought 200 acres of farm land so that we could have a super store 10 mins closer to us. Aren't they thoughtful. I mean with gas prices the way they are...
Wal-Mart is also Pro NAIS, then they went organic! HAHAHA!
The concept of a Sustainable Value Network coming from Wal-Mart is laughable.
The "Fair Trade" label on their coffee is deeply misleading. How can a company like Wal-mart where foreign workers earn a stated wage of $3.45/day even claim that anything they sell is "Fair Trade."
This is whole thing is BS, and I really hope the general public doesn't fall for it.
Have you read "The Corporation: The Pathologic Pursuit of Profit and Power"? I hope I got that right. In it the author explains that corporations MUST do what is best for the shareholders. Wal-Mart's "green" efforts are solely for the good of the shareholders. They need the good PR. When it stops being good PR, they will stop. It's unfortunate that huge corporations have the power to do good things (like cause a reduction in packaging and promote energy conservation), but they can only do so when it benefits the shareholders.
I'm glad everyone here sees through Wallyworld's rhetoric.
Jenny: The whole fair trade thing is interesting. Some products with the fair trade label are exactly the same as a product without a label we just pay more. So in a sense we are just making a donation to the workers.
Andy: I checked the Corporation out from the library and read parts of it (I also heard there is a movie of it out), but I had to return it before I finised it all. What really creeped me out was how corporations have become like living organisms. But yeah, profits for the shareholders drive everything. That is why companies outsource. The shareholders are more important than the workers.
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I completely agree with what has already been posted. I think that we would be the fools if we believed that Wal-Mart were at all interested in actual sustainability. Yet, I'm sure there are quite a few who will buy into it, sadly.
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