The sustainable brand advantage

Five years ago or so, Al Gore painted a grim environmental picture full of dire predictions of death and destruction that led us to wonder if it was indeed too late: too late to read the labels or to do good even when it was not expected. Apocalyptic visions of smoggy skylines, gridlocked traffic and smokestacks were interspersed with crashing glaciers and storm-ravaged cities. Now, most retailers know that green is good for business and that it is the “right” thing to do. Organizations like Walmart have developed increasingly creative, large-scale supply chain initiatives. Most of these are not just public relations ploys and greenwash campaigns to fool consumers. There is profit in doing so and competitive danger in lagging behind.  

In the middle of the last decade, multi-billion-dollar retail giant Wal-Mart launched a program to encourage “sustainability” of the world’s fisheries, forests and farmlands; to slash energy use and reduce waste; to push its 60,000 suppliers to produce goods that do not harm the environment and to urge consumers to buy green. Wal-Mart President and CEO Lee Scott at that time unveiled Sustainability 360 - a company-wide emphasis on sustainability. Scott said, “Sustainability 360 takes in our entire company — our customer base, our supplier base, our associates, the products on our shelves, the communities we serve. And we believe every business can look at sustainability in this way. In fact, in light of current environmental trends, we believe they will, and soon.”  

In the face of unflagging ridicule, Scott announced the company’s intention to introduce ‘global innovation projects’ like challenging Wal-Mart associates and suppliers to remove non-renewable energy from the products they sold. About that time, Wal-Mart formed 14 sustainable value networks made up of employees, suppliers and environmentalists. One result: Wal-Mart became the world’s largest buyer of organic cotton. And it introduced fair-trade coffee at its Sam’s Club stores. Wal-Mart started mapping whole product lines to find out the potential for negative environmental impact along the way. Out of that came the Packaging Scorecard program to gauge the progress vendors were making in reducing packaging waste and in protecting the planet’s natural resources and the environment.