An item in the "FT" caught my eye recently: Wal-Mart to seek greener supply chain. Fun fact: "In the US alone, Wal-Mart is estimated to sell about $30bn of goods annually that are made by about 30,000 factories in China, or about 10 per cent of all US imports." (I touched on what some retailers such as Tesco in Britain are doing here a while back, and one of Wal-Mart's initiatives on trucking here.)
Wal-Mart is working with EDF on their Green Supply Chain Initiative. In the "FT" article, the head of the Wilson Center's China Environment Forum indicated that " in China similar pressure from international companies could help counter the problems of enforcement that continue to dog central government efforts to enforce existing environmental laws." In a follow-up article, Wal-Mart orders Chinese suppliers to lift standards, we learn ""Meeting social and environmental standards is not optional,' Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive, told a gathering of more than 1,000 suppliers in Beijing." Wal-Mart's pretty serious about sustainability, as evidenced by their CEO's somewhat unequivocal statement, as well as by their website.
A third recent "FT" article zeroes in on Wal-Mart's concerns regarding packaging. Packaging is also the focus of some of Amazon.com's recent initiatives. For one thing, "Amazon has developed a software program that determines the "right-sized' box for any given item to be shipped to a customer, based on that item's dimensions and weight." They also have a vibrant "Amazon Green" site for shopping that features "frustration-free" packaging to avoid "wrap rage."
Getting back to the supply chain, the excellent GreenBiz.com has a series of recent articles on this subject. They have issued a new report: "Greening the Supply Chain in Emerging Markets: Some Lessons From the Field." The report was written by the CEO of the World Environment Center, an NGO doing work in, among other things, capacity building.
Back in my NYSDEC days, we always highlighted the primacy of "waste reduction" as the first in the order of things to do with solid or hazardous waste.
