Wal-Mart File Gets Fatter

Continuing our coverage:

Treehugger encomium: "It's getting harder to hate Wal-Mart."

Treehugger Take Two: "While we're well aware that Wal-Mart isn't perfect, we think they should be recognized for the good, green things they're incorporating into their business practices."

TomPaine.com: "In close consultation with Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute, Scott pledged to double the efficiency of Wal-Mart's enormous truck fleet by 2015 and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from its existing stores and warehouses by 20 percent over the same stretch. By 2008, Wal-Mart will have a store design that uses 30 percent less energy and produces 30 percent fewer GHG emissions, developed out of the experimental green stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado. It will reduce solid waste from its stores and clubs by 25 percent in three years."

Our argument stays the same: For true sustainability and consistent green values, the Wal-Mart global-beats-local business model simply does not work. Saying you'll reduce Wal-Mart's ugliness by 20 percent does not turn a hairy wart into a cute dimple. A truck fleet that runs on biodiesel (if such a thing is really even possible at Wal-Mart's scale) still requires too many resources to do things which can be better, more efficiently, and more sustainably done at the local level. I wish the earnest essayists who defend Wal-Mart would show a command of the principles of relocalization and post-carbon thinking, the 100-mile diet and localvore movement. The issue isn't hating or loving Wal-Mart, it's whether the future of the earth can support a Wal-Mart model. Assessing that requires looking beyond its promises and plans to a far larger context of global health and sustainability.

-- Paul Andrews, GreenforGood

global warming ecological footprint carbon footprint GreenforGood sustainability green lifestyle