Opinion: Who Is Biggest Environmentalist?

(June 18) -- Sugar is the new health food. Apple is larger than Microsoft. And Wal-Mart is now the world's biggest environmentalist.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

It wasn't that long ago that Wal-Mart was a big and easy and almost daily target for environmental reporters. Leaders from Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and others pushed Wal-Mart to do what it could to cut its environmental footprint.

And in 2005, Wal-Mart stopped defending its behavior and started changing the way it acted. Wal-Mart went green.

At first, many were skeptical. That is a polite way of saying no one believed them.

But today, Wal-Mart has made a believer out of environmentalists, as well as tens of thousands of business owners around the world who are scrambling to go green to meet the demands of the $400 billion a year gorilla.

And it's shown how private enterprise, acting on its own without the force of law or the heavy hand of federal regulations, can make a huge difference to the environment.

Wal-Mart didn't go gently into sustainability. It went full bore: Within a year of its announcement, the 2 million associates at 8,400 stores were squeezing energy -- carbon -- out of every nook and cranny in every store and warehouse.

The company delivered 77 million more cases while driving 100 million fewer miles. It used nearly 5 billion fewer plastic bags. It's now the largest buyer of organic cotton and milk in the world.

It started work on a Sustainability Index, sending a 15-part questionnaire to vendors on how they planned to help Wal-Mart meets its environmental goals. It won't be ready for a year, but farmers and manufacturers and everyone in between are rushing to change the way they do business.

At a recent meeting with Wal-Mart vendors in Beijing, Wal-Mart told thousands of suppliers they should adopt best practices to make their products more sustainable. Or Wal-Mart would find other companies that do.

The huge Los Gatos Tomato farm recently went solar partly because it knows all the big buyers of tomatoes are starting to ask about sustainable practices.

In May, Procter and Gamble, one of Wal-Mart's largest suppliers, issued its own Sustainability Index. Twentieth Century Fox also changed the way it makes and packages DVDs.

Harvard Business Review calls sustainability the next megatrend: a sweeping and permanent change in the way we all do business.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Kerry are contemplating new regulations to reduce carbon emissions. No matter how you feel about these proposals, it is worth noting this: A typical reaction to a new law is to hire lawyers to help you get around it.

The reaction to Wal-Mart, and to P&G and others who want greener supply chains, is just the opposite: They are hiring experts to help them comply.

And why wouldn't they?

Economists estimate that 1 in 3 dollars worldwide is associated with a company that does business with Wal-Mart, says Ron Herman, author of the Hip Investor. That is a lot of incentive.

And as The New York Times puts it: "because of its size and power, Wal-Mart usually gets what it wants."

Tom Rooney is president and CEO of SPG Solar in Novato, Calif.


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