Is Walmart’s Sustainability Index a Game Changer?
Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter thinks so. Professor Kanter, who The Times of London describes as one of the “50 most powerful women in the world” holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School. In a blog post on The Harvard Business Review site, Walmart’s Environmental Game Changer, she expresses the view that by nature of it’s market clout, Walmart has “transformed green standards from nice-to-have, to must-have.” Walmart’s announcement puts pressure on their suppliers and their competitors. In the process it moves the consumer products marketplace towards a future in which consumers can make comparative buying decisions based on the knowledge of the product’s environmental and social impact. Here is how Professor Kanter describes Walmart’s decision,
Wal-Mart’s unilateral decision to put its purchasing and communication power behind going green also shows that a single company using its unique clout can accelerate public action to reduce greenhouse gases and reverse climate change. By rolling out an environmental labeling program disclosing to consumers the environmental costs of making products sold at Wal-Mart, the $401 billion retail behemoth has transformed green standards from nice-to-have to must-have.
It marks a change in how products will be labeled, how supply chains communicate their activities and in the information that will inform consumers make purchasing decisions. This is how Green To Gold author Andrew Winston describes it in a post How The Wal-mart Eco-Ratings will Save Money, also on the Harvard Business Review.
And this is the larger trend that’s coming. The combination of technology and rising consumer demands is creating a powerful movement toward greater transparency about how a product is made, where it comes from, how much energy is used, and so on. Consumers are already starting to get a taste of this data — you can already download a number of iPhone apps and/or check websites like GoodGuide.com to find product sustainability scores. Consumers will certainly want more, and they’ll want more coordination between all the groups starting to collect it. The world’s biggest retailer kicking off this initiative is a good start at harmonizing all these sources.
Sounds like a game changer to me.
-FR
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