Grand experiment

The experimental Wlal-Mart store in Aurora

The eight-mile drive along Pena Boulevard, which connects Denver International Airport to Interstate 70, traverses an emerging exurban landscape. Marriott residential hotels, business parks and “for lease” signs dot the fields bordering the highway. Lone construction trailers announce future subdivisions — “Wolf Creek Run” — and fast food appears to be the only option.

But just beyond the Airport Road exit, an unfamiliar scene unfolds against the sky. White propellers spin, first slowly, then fast, on a yellow tail. Drive closer, and the outline of a sleek 143-foot-tall wind turbine takes shape — in the parking lot of a 206,000 square foot Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The juxtaposition is incongruous, if not entirely unexpected. The Wal-Mart Supercenter in Aurora, Col., is one of two experimental stores (the second is in McKinney, Texas) intended to advance the company’s ambitious new “sustainability” mandate. In a shot heard around the world, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott in 2005 delivered a speech to employees heralding a new era of sustainable business operations for the world’s biggest corporation.

The company’s goals include meeting 100 percent of its energy needs with renewable power, creating zero waste, and shifting to environmentally superior consumer products, including organically grown food. The experimental stores are ground zero. Wal-Mart opened the Aurora Supercenter in fall 2005 and contracted with the National Renewable Energy Lab of Golden, Col., to provide testing and analysis on store systems and materials. A control store in nearby Centennial provides a baseline against which the environmental benefits of the Aurora site are measured.

Wal-Mart’s (NYSE: WMT) legion of critics have puzzled over the significance of a possible born-again behemoth. Are the company’s goals all about “greenwashing”? Or will Wal-Mart use its tremendous buying power to catalyze multiple market transformations in green building, product development and renewable energy?

“There’s no question when Wal-Mart pays attention to environmental issues they are given a validity and importance that is unique because they are the biggest corporation in the world,” says Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, a manufacturer of environmentally themed household products [see “Hollender reflects on ‘What Matters Most,’” SIJ, May 2004].