Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, July 27, 2008
Joe Orso: You’ll never guess who’s gone green
Which La Crosse store plans to sell locally grown corn, pumpkins, apples and other produce this fall, and stocks cloth bags that read, “Paper or Plastic? Neither.”
Here’s a hint: The store is part of a chain that has received wide criticism for everything from pressuring workers to work overtime without pay to causing increases in poverty to hurting local economies.
Yes. It’s Walmart.
Of all the local institutions this newspaper has hailed as going green, I didn’t expect we’d be adding the world’s largest retailer to the list.
But in 2007, H. Lee Scott, Walmart’s CEO, announced a sustainability initiative that equips each store with sustainability captains and personal sustainability practice teams.
Last week, Lynn Paddy, store manager at the Walmart on Mormon Coulee Road, showed me a sustainability board near the breakroom where employees had written what they’ve been doing to be more sustainable. One quit buying plastic water bottles. Another bicycles to work.
“You’re a skeptic, aren’t you?” Paddy said to me as we talked in her office.
And I admit, when it comes to Walmart, I am.
Bill McKibben, in his 2007 book, “Deep Economy,” writes that “almost no one who has studied the issue continues to claim that Walmart or its big-box brethren are good for the communities where they locate.”
But I’ve also shopped at Walmart in the past year and, contrary to a popular belief, don’t see the chain as eternally damned.
Walmart, like people, is more complex than that.
Paddy, 41, put it like this: “There’s definitely green, greener and greenest, and you can’t affect everything, but if you affect what you can, you are making a difference ... Walmart is so big that whatever it does, it’s able to have a huge impact, whether it’s good or bad.”
That’s true. The billion-pound gorilla’s Web site touts itself as the world’s largest retailer, doing $374.526 billion in sales for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2008. It operates more than 4,100 facilities in the United States, more than 3,100 facilities elsewhere, and employs more than 2 million people.
Paddy works as the sustainability market captain for 12 stores in the region.
On our walk through Walmart’s Mormon Coulee store, she showed me a cart-pusher running on solar power; soda machines with the display light bulbs removed; and a station where plastic hangers, frosting buckets from the bakery, plastic vases from the floral department, cardboard and other items are gathered for recycling.
She also talked about plans to install motion-sensor freezer lights, and Walmart executives’ efforts to get suppliers to reduce packaging and grow cotton organically.
So what’s the verdict?
Is Walmart doing this as a public relations blitz?
Maybe. Paddy discussed working on sustainability initiatives with the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, the Myrick-Hixon EcoPark, and other local and state groups, and she is hoping to get a spot on the La Crosse City and County’s Joint Oversight Committee on Sustainability.
Or perhaps Walmart realizes that going green is good business? As Paddy pointed out, going from paying trash collectors to haul cardboard to selling it to recyclers has turned a cost into a profit, and she’d like to see her store compete with the People’s Food Co-op by supplying local and organic food.
Or is the company seeking to protect the earth and lead the business world to do the same?
Scott has announced a goal to make every air conditioner sold by Walmart in the U.S. by 2010 to be Energy Star certified, and through Acres for America, the company is conserving an acre of land for each acre it develops.
But finally, can a retail chain built on massive consumption ever be sustainable?
If nothing else, look at it this way: The fact that even Walmart is working on sustainable issues, the fact that it employs Paddy, who composts at home and is talking about composting the waste produce at the Walmart she manages, shows the reach of the environmental movement.
All those people living off the grid and leading the way for decades must be surprised at, and a little nervous about, the giant lining up behind them.
Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or jorso@lacrossetribune.com.
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