Going Green to Get Your Green?

Is it really all about helping sales? What about helping the environment? Well done, Walmart. I'm sure they had the underlying PR/sales motive, but the net result is a benefit for sustainability.

As if, I'm like so sure walmart could ever teach the public about living off local resources sustainably. Teach people how to live peacefully walmart.

Wal-Mart is off to a good start in some ways: they have declared a Zero Waste Goal, but the way they have pursued it so far the job is only half-done. Is Wal-Mart collecting end-of-use products that they sell and asking (or better yet requiring) their supliers to take them back? Not yet, but that's what they need to do to really walk their talk! This is the core Zero Waste concept of Extended Producer Responsiblility (EPR): costs and risks to manage end-of-life products and materials must be the responsibility of manufacturers, and not local govenments or ratepayers. EPR provides the incentive for manufacturers, marketers, and retailers to “design the waste out” so that products can be readily reused, repaired, reconditioned, or recycled. Retailers such as Wal-mart can assist by collecting and returning selected products to manufacturers in an efficient 'reverse distribution system' using the empty trucks that deliver finished goods to retail stores. Growing consumption of material and energy for consumer products is impacting global life support systems. Extraction, processing, production, transportation, use, and disposal of consumer goods are linked to most major environmental problems including habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, global climate change, and the public health and social disruption associated with these problems. Decisions about wasteful product design and packaging are made by manufacturers and marketers, and Wal-Mart is a position of unique influence to leverage positive change toward a more sustainable product and materials use cycle. Then, and only then, can Wal-Mart proudly say they are truely working toward their stated Zero Waste and Sustainability goals.

The point of my last post, is that electronics suppliers' sustainability scorecards to keep track of the environmental impact of their products need to include end-of-product-life management by the manufacturers.

The point of my last post is that the score cards Wal-Mart will be asking electronics manufacturers to complete to keep track of the environmental impact of their products need to account for life-cycle impact: They must include environmental impacts during use AND end-of-product-life management. The end-of-product-life management should be the responsibility of the producers, and a good example is the system Washington state is implementing following enactment of its Extended Producer Responsibility law for electronics, which was supported by retailers like Wal-Mart – for more info see: http://www.cawrecycles.org/node/272 or http://www.productstewardship.net/policiesElectronicsNWStates.html