Walmart Makes Positive Sustainable Changes

Walmart has teamed up with Aveda to set 3 environmentally-friendly goals for the future.  Walmart plans to be supplied with 10% renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain the company resources and the environment. Overall, Walmart plans to reduce it's packaging by 5% by 2013.  To some people that 5% may not seem like a lot, but 5% to Walmart is a lot more than most people could see in a lifetime.  It is really a significant amount of savings that will positively affect the whole world.  And because Walmart is such an influential company, hopefully other smaller companies around the globe will catch on and begin to do similar acts. 

It is obvious that most promotions are only used as a way to increase sales or profit but this promotion will actually do some good for the company while making a difference in the surrounding society.  According the the AdWeek article, by changing the way it packages it's goods, Walmart will affect greenhouse gas emissions,  product-to-package ratio, the amount of renewable energy used in packaging production and transportation emissions, among other things. 

Walmart has already taken steps to make similar changes.  For example by May of this year Walmart will only supply liquid laundry detergents and fully supports the concentrated detergents that use less water.  If Walmart alone and make these significant changes and influence companies around it, whether for ethical or commercial reasons, I think our society can benefit from it in more ways than one. 

I am from a small town, where as I type this, a Super Walmart is being built on the edge of town.  The people of this town have been fighting for years about whether or not to build a Walmart here because of the repercussions on the small area business'.  Even though Walmart has many other practices that need to be evaluated and changed to better our world, I think this is a start, and one that should be recognized.