Wal-Mart going Green
May 10, 2008
There’s a lot of discussion going on of late about Wal-Mart’s push to go green.
Wal-Mart has pledged to make its stores 20 percent more energy efficient by 2013, which will cut annual electricity use by 3.5 million megawatt-hours.
They’ve also unrolled a a plan to double the fuel economy of its trucks by 2015, which will save 60 million gallons of diesel fuel a year.
The company also published a benchmark carbon footprint. Wal-Mart estimates its U.S. operations were responsible for 15.3 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2005.
About three-quarters of this pollution came from the electricity generated to power its stores. Take a virtual tour of a Wal-Mart store and hear how they are making changes in their test stores to experiment with how they can both reduce costs and their imact on the environment.
Perhaps more important than what they’re doing in their own operation, the comany is making great strides to educate their customers as well. Their website encourages users to think about how they shop, and highlights earth friendly products.
These changes have not been without controversy. Some say that this is just a smart move to reduce overhead. Others say it’s jumping on the green bandwagon to improve the company’s poor image in the public eye after the labor and health-care scandals of the last few years.
What do you think?
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