Walmart's green focus in Global Responsibility Report

04 May '15

3 min read

In its eighth annual Global Responsibility Report (GRR), Walmart has outlined its social and environmental work over the past year, including its efforts to reduce solid waste, such as food waste and packaging materials, and its initiatives around using more sustainable materials for product packaging.

“Every day, Walmart brings affordable products and services to 260 million customers in 27 countries around the world. As the world’s largest retailer, we have committed to use our strengths to help others, by addressing social and environmental issues in collaboration with customers, suppliers, governments, non-profits, and other stakeholders,” said Kathleen McLaughlin, President of the Walmart Foundation and Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Walmart.

In the area of waste reduction across its global operations, Walmart’s GRR reports that each day, the corporation moves closer to realizing its goal of creating zero waste—a goal set 10 years ago—by providing solutions to improve waste data management and reduce and divert food and materials from turning into waste.

“Millions of tons of materials flow through Walmart facilities each year,” said the report. “We’re finding ways to reduce, reuse, recycle, and manage them more efficiently, resulting in a significant environmental and business upside.”

According to the report Walmart US operations’ operational waste diversion improved to 82.4 per cent in 2014. And in Central America, Walmart used reverse logistics to increase the total weight of materials collected for recycling by 10.8 per cent in 2014, for a total of 21,388 metric tons

In Mexico, the corporation’s waste reduction campaign, Reduce, Recycle, and Win, helped Walmart reduce food waste by 6 per cent in Mexican stores and increased the amount of recyclables, including cardboard and stretch film, as compared with 2013.

The GRR also stressed on the use of sustainable materials. From recycled content to packaging optimization, Walmart said its thorough consideration of the materials it uses for its products helps deliver value to its customers, both from an economic and an environmental perspective.

“In the U.S. alone, cities spend billions of dollars annually throwing away materials that are worth billions more,” says the report. “Every ton of trash recycled rather than landfilled not only raises the availability of materials we need, but saves money, creates local jobs, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

The GRR also said Walmart was reducing the environmental footprints of its operations. Walmart continues to expand the development of on-site and off-site solar, wind, fuel cells and other technologies, to accelerate progress toward our goal of procuring seven billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable energy by 2020 – and ultimately being powered 100 per cent by renewable energy. (SH)

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