Wal-Mart Blows My Yuppie Mind
Decatur Metro | August 7, 2009I’m not sure whether to laugh, raise an eyebrow, or nod warily at this.
Recently, Wal-Mart has been rolling out plans for what it calls a sustainability index — a measure of how green the products it sells really are. It is asking each of its suppliers, an enormous list of businesses, 15 questions about the life of their products from manufacturing through disposal: questions about greenhouse gas emissions, social responsibility, waste reduction initiatives and water use.
…Wal-Mart has already created a Sustainability Index Consortium, which will include environmental groups and other nonprofits, universities and businesses. The consortium will create the criteria for the index, and will share with Wal-Mart the task of building a product-by-product database measuring the environmental impact of each product’s life cycle.
Oh god! Guilt-free consumerism is almost here! Thank you skillful marketing, thank you!
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In all due respect….why dont you stick to Decatur Metro news. I dont own Wal-Mart stock/i dont shop there/ i dont work there….
Gimme a break
WITH all due respect, if you don’t see the connection between big-box stores co-opting “sustainability” and the small towns/city that actually strive for it, I’m not going to spell it out for you.
Oh wait, I just did.
No offense to you, DM, but this is why I stopped posting here–these folks who, for some reason, find it crucial to post idiotic comments to threads instead of moving on, oh, and the trolls, but they’re different.
Anyway, cheers to you, thanks for the info and to hell with the cranks.
Hear hear on the cranks, W. (unless, of course, you’re including me
) But the downside is…I’ve missed you. I hope you change your mind on posting here, because you always have interesting things to say.
Thanks, my problem is every post borders on unlikely stupid comments (from me) and complete, utter personal attacks–which as you know don’t go over so well.
Maybe everyone posting here should change their names with templates that display their political leanings, like this:
Fascist–Before Enema Liedown…
Ultra Leftist–Slappy…
You forgot one:
Somewhere in the middle – most of the rest of us.
True, but like the politicians we vote for some of us talk one way and act another.
HEY – you talking to me, Comrade?
My recent begrudged trip to the WalMart (nothing against Walmart, I don’t really like shopping, big ol’ stores, or walking through parking lots full of cell-phoning-talking-while-driving pickups) near my mom’s home in the rural southeast, would lead me to believe that a Don’t-Give-A-Sh*t-About-Anything-But-Price Index would give a better measure of WalMart’s costumers’ preference and shopping needs. It would seem less cynical too.
Maybe a Chicken-Fried-Index could be used as a proxy. The Chicken-Fried Index could measure all the Chicken-Fried deliciousness in WalMart products. I expect the Chicken-Fried sway would be similar to that of NASCAR. It could generate massive swings in market share. Even products normally not associated with Chicken-Fried deliciousness, like say chainsaw oil, could add hints of a seductive Chicken-Fried waft to lure in your discerning Walmart patron. It would be like a Argonaut drawn helplessly to the Siren’s call.
As an aside, while you’re at WalMart, undoubtedly using you iPhone to add up your Sustainability Index Score, as a diversion from the pain, you may want to try playing a game that I would like to take credit for developing: tattoo bingo. The game is played my counting tattoos on the patrons and applying the tattoo’s relative points to your score. Tattoos on people with a tooth missing score double. Same goes for anyone without a shirt unless its a woman, then its triple score or minus one or more. Quadruple scores are for tattoos beside a visible butt crack or on a breast with the bra showing or below the tan line (hubba-hubba). That’s as far as I have it figured out. I don’t know what warrants shouting out Bingo!, unless at the same time you’re playing regular bingo or someone states a profound revaluation of the obvious.
Don’t forget to add the obesity index and some points for screaming at or slapping a child too young to understand.
Boy, it must really be great to be so enlightened and so smart and so rich that you only need to go to Wal-Mart when you want a quick and easy way to feel good about yourself by laughing at people who are so obviously beneath you.
God, those dumb hick pig farmers and ignorant crackers and their Wal-Mart, am I right? It’s so awesome that we don’t have to live like that, am I right? Sure are lucky that we got to be born beautiful and insightful and oh-so-superior to everyone else! God, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be one of THOSE people. My god, I bet they have to work manual labor, or worse!
Seriously, man – look in the mirror and think about your life and what has led you to the type of life you are now. Then think about how one little change here or there would put you in Those People’s situation.
Shit like this is why everyone OTP hates everyone ITP.
Wonderful sanctimonious lecture!
You are certainly doing a great job as community shamer. Keep up the good work and you make get promoted to the State Board of Stereotype Censoring.
Yep, always amusing to see someone get bent out of shape by a joke–keep it up, folks like you make me post here.
None of us, ITP, have ever worked a day in our lives, we wear perfectly cleaned white gloves, we never lift anything heavier than a tumbler full of highball, we have drivers–in giant stretch SUV limos, and servants for everything (we’ve never even touched toilet paper)–oh, and we all know that from the perimeter all the way to New York City there is nothing but knee-jerk (thanks for the phrase BEL) rednecks that don’t know humor from the tailpipes of their trucks.
Above post was directed toward [edited: no personal attacks]–and not T Finger (which is great screen name, by the way).
Oh, look at you guys. You’re so tough and edgy and virile, with your not caring about other people or anything like that.
Oh, and “King of BS Park.” God, I wish I was clever and brilliant like you. To quote a late, great, American, all [edited: no personal attacks]
Those of you who look down your nose at Walmart need to stop the self-righteousness and find out some truths. Watch the movie “Food, Inc.” and you’ll see that Walmart now is a big proponent of organic dairy products and local produce. The founder of Stonyfield spoke at great length and applauded Walmart for listening to its consumers and adding quality organic products. I guess it makes you feel good to stereotype the Walmart consumer, but the company IS changing. I now buy my organic milk and cage free eggs there – excellent quality and great value. It’s always amazing to me how people who are “liberal” are actually so judgmental and petty in characterizing others. BTW, I’m VERY liberal, so don’t resort to calling me a wingnut.
Point well-taken and I haven’t been in a Wal-Mart for years so shouldn’t judge. But a few unpleasant experiences in the big boxes or dollar stores can make you shudder for a long time afterwards.
Thanks for the lecture. I, for one, am truly shamed.
And I am shocked to hear that a Stonyfield executive lauded the world’s largest retailer for carrying his products. I am sure the NASCAR fans in my hometown are lining up before the store opens to pickup yogurt and pork rhines before the big rally.
I will watch the movie after I finished Atlas Shrugged. It was recommended to me to after a lecture on something called Objectivism. Opps, forgot I have a highly recommended L. Ron Hubbard tome to devour too. I understand that it was produce at the Niman Ranch
Pork rinds. They’re delicious. If you’re not a vegetarian, give them a try.
I am pretty sure that Walmart hired someone from high up in Sierra Club to run their sustainability program. At least one person at Walmart might be earnest about this…
My mom is corporate with Wal-Mart (don’t ever go shopping with her; she starts yelling for managers and calling her colleagues to fax over proper floor plans to the departments). She was actually just telling me that Wal -Mart is serious about going as green as possible. They are giving vendors limited time to reduce packaging and find ways to cut out waste. They are pressing vendors to make affordable green products like paper plates and have a timeline for eliminating styrofoam from the stores. If anyone can force manufacturers to make green affordable, it’s Wal – Mart. The company also committed to public health insurance because corporate actually understands the positive impact “government health care”, or health care fueled by an economy of scale, will have on businesses large and small.
BTW, I like Target.
Nellie,
Wal-Mart’s support of an employer mandate is likely not intended to have a positive impact on their competitors:
“But it’s also a good from a competitive standpoint. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, can afford the costs imposed by an employer mandate. Smaller competitors are likely to find it harder — and they’re not too happy about Wal-Mart’s announcement.”
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/134470.html
On the other hand, I shop at Wal-Mart when it makes sense to do so, and find it interesting that when they open a new store they are flooded with job applicants. It is likely that their overall contribution to society is positive. But they take advantage of regulatory capture just as any other large company with substantial influence over politics does.
For anyone with some time to spare, have a listen to Charles Platt’s take on working at Wal-Mart.
“Charles Platt, author and journalist, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts what it was like to apply for a job at Wal-Mart, get one, and work there. He discusses the hiring process, the training process, and the degree of autonomy Wal-Mart employees have to change prices. The conversation concludes with a discussion of attitudes toward Wal-Mart.”
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/06/platt_on_workin.html
– Brandon
Going green couldn’t hurt. Might help.
My main beef with Wally World is the shenanigans they play with local tax exemptions. Move in based on tax breaks then when the breaks expire open a second store just across the city limits and leave the old store unoccupied.
http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/wal_mart_watch_in_depth_the_great_tax_dodge/
thanks for the English lesson. This is really what i want from my local blog — a blogger who has to throw in his own two cents on all sorts of socio-economic issues…as if i care. guess what pal, i dont. Use your perch to report on the local news…how about the crap that went down at good ol’ CSD’s high school band trip….nah…we dont dis ourselves. Let’s take the easy route and urinate all over Wal-Mart. How interesting. how original. what great insight
by the way, it’s called capitalism. go check it out. it’s worked great here in America
…lighten up Francis
MAK, thanks for the feedback. At least now I have a better idea of where you’re coming from. You want to get your local news here but don’t want to have to wade through my socio-economic critiques, which it doesn’t sound like you necessarily agree with. I originally had trouble deriving that from “give me a break.” I wonder if your advice would be different if you agreed with the critiques…
Regardless, this blog is what it is. I make no apologies, especially when the post in question results in such an interesting conversation.
BTW, what happened on the band trip? Despite what you infer, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Give me details and I’ll look into it.
Wow, DM, bet you never imagined a story about Wal Mart going green would have resulted in such emotional responses!
For anyone who has seen “The High Cost of Low Prices,” it’s easy to understand your skepticism. Wal Mart’s reliance upon Chinese goods is frightening, especially with China’s environmental record. But Nelliebelle’s post about her mom’s understanding of Wal Mart’s intentions is heartening.
I used to share the same condescension toward Wal Mart customers as others in this thread. In fact, for years, the only time I ever stepped foot in a Wal Mart was to buy ammunition (what can I say? It was a lot cheaper there, and target shooting can get expensive. I just know I’m gonna get slammed by the gun-haters here for that admission.) But Wal Mart seems to be a different place these days, and I see a much larger variety of customers there on a regular basis. For many of these folks, it’s more than just low prices.
I like WalMart better now than I used to, and their grocery section (produce, especially) is wonderful. I am told that THEIR shift to green is monumental, because it will force others in the market to go green too. It’s like McDonald’s in its market volume and influence. The stereotyping of WalMart customers is pretty mean, I think. Don’t be so judgmental about people you see, OK? I don’t like to see kids abused in public OR privately, but this happens in all socioeconomic classes, in case you don’t realize it. You should also recognize by now that tattoos are indeed fashionable, and not a sign of dereliction. My son and d-i-l both have tattoos and one is an M.D. and the other a college professor, both well-educated liberals, both dedicated ecologists, both well read, and both more savvy about the green trend and how to participate meaningfully than anyone else I know.
The Wal-Mart bashing can be a little funny, but also ridiculous when gone too far. I shop there sometimes. Sue me. The new store on Memorial is probably the nicest one I’ve been in to date.
Just out of curiosity, whow does building a sustainability index on every product in Walmart’s inventory equal “co-opting sustainability”?
Its tuff to change a stigma that the company has had for a long time, but I appreciate this dialogue as a leap off point to dig a bit deeper. I’ve never been a big fan of WM, mainly due to their “slash and burn” policy as far as how they incorporate into a town. I do like their prices though!
Its kinda like American auto’s…today they are just as reliable as the Japanese cars, and generally as fuel-efficient (especially Ford on both accounts). But it’s hard to kill the stigma of the American car reputation.
as someone who used to work for a walmart supplier, let me comment that the requirements that they force down onto their supply chain are often absurd and often end up adding expense that Walmart refuses to allow be passed on to the consumer….
sounds like this is another feel-good marketing scheme that will be felt in the pocket of the suppliers and will probably result in more US suppliers not being able to compete with cheap imports that make up a huge portion of what WM sells.
There’s no right answer in this debate because it’s wholly dependent on what lens you’re looking through.
If you’re looking through an economic lens, it’s hard to dispute that WM are capitalist masters. They have a mission — to deliver low priced consumer goods — and they deliver on that mission with a level of efficiency that has never before existed. They do it with the keenest possible understanding of the economic, bureaucratic and political environments in which they operate, and the know-how to manipulate those environments to serve their mission.
Capitalist Scorecard: A
If you’re looking through an environmental lens, you’ll see WM’s story unfolding much like other businesses savvy at responding to market trends. Business never really embraced “green” in any tangible way until people started figuring out how to make green profitable. Now, green is just one more tool for saving money or gaining market advantage and WM, as many above have noted, is emerging as a leader in these efforts.
That doesn’t mean they’re suddenly hippie philanthropists instead of capitalists. It’s just a new system to understand and exploit. Just as WM once externalized the cost of health coverage for their employees to local/state programs, they’ve also found — for example — that packaging (both size, which consumes shipping space, and shipping materials, which WM must pay to discard) is closely tied to the bottom line. If they can say to all their suppliers that reducing packaging and shipping materials is their new mandate for doing business together, that becomes (as Nellie noted) a huge green effort. And, all the better for WM, it’s one that other companies largely pay for, while WM gets the benefits in terms of both cost savings and PR.
Like I said, savvy. And I’m not saying that in the pejorative. If your measure is how well a company serves its mission of delivering lower prices, WM continues to excel.
Still, big box retail (all of it) is an auto-dependent model so any enviro efforts can only go so far in the grand scheme. So…
Environmental Scorecard: C
Finally, the point DM was getting at: sustainability. Long story short, WM delivers on its promise to consumers and stockholders through maximized leveraging of cheap energy and cheap labor, both of which are finite resources.
Finite resources = unsustainable by definition. I think that’s what DM was getting at in saying “co-opting”. WM, in their present model, can never be sustainable. Neither can any other big-box scaled retail store, so anyone using that word is a little disingenuous. They can kick ass in other ways. They can even demonstrate very admirable environmental practices. But the model will crash at some point.
To some, it’s just a matter of semantics. Nonetheless, if your measure is sustainability, it’s…
Sustainability Scorecard: F
If got friends who swear by WM and friends who fight their every move. But anyone who wants them to be solely angel or solely devil isn’t seeing the big picture.
Sorry. Too long. Please resume the more concise responses that have characterized this thread.
Scott,
That is quite possibly the most intelligent thing I have ever read on DM. Great job laying out the realistic aspects of Wal Mart’s actions, and showing a thorough understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
Precisely Scott.
I’m aware the potential conflicts that arise when Wal-Mart attempts to clean up it’s act. That’s why I stated at the top of the post that I was unsure of my own reaction. But at the end of the day (or the post), my tendency to value sustainability above all else took over. Hence my glib comment about marketing.
I’m not saying that Wal-Mart cleaning up it’s act won’t benefit millions of people in thousands of ways. I’m saying that at the end of the day, even after slapping a sustainable label on everything, they still aren’t sustainable, because they derive their cheapness from cheap oil. However, the power of marketing is that if they say “sustainable” enough, eventually everyone will think they are, and I think that can be a pretty dangerous thing.
Interesting comments about W*M –
But let’s remember that, simply because of their immense scale, Wal*Mart can do more for the environmental movement with one mere policy change than thousands of local activists can do in a career.
Because suppliers must meet Wal*Mart sustainability standards, they will have created their own economic scale for other customers like Target, KMart and others.
Yes, this is marketing gimmick, but it’s also very good for the green movement.
Wingnuts!
“No offense to you, DM, but this is why I stopped posting here–these folks who, for some reason, find it crucial to post idiotic comments to threads instead of moving on”
Oh Gibbs, I wish you would take your own advice.
Your buddy,
“Conservative does not equal fascist” – BEL
Liberal doesn’t equal communist.
I wasn’t giving advice–I was commenting, and thank you for, once again, proving my point.
U’m Funnished.
Comment on “Conservative doesn’t equal fascist” and “Liberal doesn’t equal communinist”: most Americans are closer to one another in politics than they realize compared to parts of the world with incredible extremism. Too bad we don’t realize it more; the realization might make it easier to build consensus. Politicians running for office understandably accentuate their differences but the range of most American political views is pretty narrow, in the center, and based on similar values. Everyone is thinking of the spectrum of politics like it’s a straight line. But have you noticed how homeschoolers can be right leaning, bothered by no religion or values in schools, or left leaning, wanting a more organic, natural, less regimented education, and then they all end up at the same homeschooling events with a lot in common. Same for libertarians who can come from either direction but end up with less-government views. In fact, I view the range to be a relatively short circle that goes from moderate Republican to conservative to right-leaning libertarian to left-leaning libertarian to liberal to moderate Democrat and then back to moderate Republican.
As long is everyone is aware there is a social price to be paid when purchasing anything then so be it…shop there. Our minds and our purchases are what create our world.
Actually any purchase of anything at all carries immense responsibility as it has an impact on not just the environment, but local governments, communities, foreign governments, workers, etc.
Let me just say that Walmart has had a succinct advantage as its playing field tends to be tilted by government policy, which, for more than two decades, has encouraged and underwritten the expansion of big-box retailers while ‘systematically’ undermining the survival of independent businesses. Often cities across the country provide hundreds of millions of dollars in development subsidies to retailers like Wal-Mart (Target, etc.) to help them build stores. Also business like Walmart use their market power to purposefully undermine their rivals. They win not by being better good competitors, but by using their size and power to gain an an often unfair advantage. They have the ability to pressure suppliers to give them special deals that are not available to independent businesses. They tend to build far more square footage of retail space in a community than the spending power of local consumers can support and they do this because they know that by flooding a market with excess retail capacity, it is a lot easier to capsize independent retailers. So no matter how well run or popular an independent business, the indepent often lacks the deep financial resources to withstand a sustained attack by a global multi-national corporation.
Finally, as someone noted above, its alarming when you become aware of the sheer number of goods produced in China that are sold at Walmart. In discussion with someone about this recently, they said,
“Rick, perhaps this is an evolutionary process and since we live in a global economy, this type of business model is helping to pull many countries out of poverty and into a modern capitalistic market dynamic. Until the USA decides that its important for our citizenry to produce goods here, why not benefit other countries?”
hmmm…interesting way of looking at it. I guess the fact that China is a totalitarian communist dictatorship is one thing that gives me pause…
Like someone else above said…I guess it depends on the lens you are looking through. Just make sure the lens you are looking through is wiped clean first.
Thanks Brad.