Wal-Mart's Green Rating System | Sierra Club Green Home

Wal-Mart’s Green Rating System

If anyone can take on this gargantuan task, it would be Wal-Mart. They have the resources, the size, and buying power to give product life-cycle analysis a try.

This is very ambitious, other corporations have tried to assess their various product lines with inconclusive outcomes. Clearly, an industry standard needs to be set or “sustainable information mayhem” could result. Different scales with different measurement criteria would be a disaster. Ideally, an independent, non-profit entity would take this on, but that is unlikely from a funding standpoint in the current economy. Wal-Mart has spearheaded certain aspects of sustainability that other corporations have not even thought about, and has demonstrated integrity in its environmental policies. When this conglomerate sneezes, the worldwide supplier community gets a cold. If Wal-Mart says this is important, suppliers will jump to attention. Overall, this could be a great breakthrough for sustainability worldwide.