walmart awash in green poo?

Walmart is set to unveil a major environmental project. When I first heard this news I thought, great, more corporate green-washing bullshit. Wallmart, destroyer of small town economies, Walmart, importer of cheap Chinese goods and advertiser of American made? That Walmart?

And then I read the questions that Walmart intends to ask it's suppliers. Questions intended to form the basis of a Sustainability Product Index that eventually will be placed on each item. Consumers can then make choices about which items to purchase and believe me, a certain percent of their shoppers will base their buying decisions on this Index. Not the solution to the world's problems, and certainly Walmart will expect people to spend money on products they may or may not need, but in the long term this is a good thing. Why? Walmart is a huge corporation and what they do has an impact on the many other aspects of the economy. When Momma and Poppa and Bubba are talking Sustainability Index in the aisles of Walmart, then there's hope that Momma and Poppa and Bubba politicians might be talking about sustainablity in the aisles of Congress.

None of this will get me to shop to at Walmart, but it's still encouraging.

Here are the questions that suppliers are expected to report to Walmart. A number of issues remain, for instance, exactly how the index will be calculated and will it be free of bias and interferences from companies who only care about placing products with the giant retailer.

Sustainability Product Index: 15 Questions for Suppliers
Energy and Climate: Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
1.Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions?
2.Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)?
3.What is your total annual greenhouse gas emissions reported in the most recent year measured?
4.Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Material Efficiency: Reducing Waste and Enhancing Quality
1.If measured, please report the total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
2.Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?
3.If measured, please report total water use from facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
4.Have you set publicly available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Natural Resources: Producing High Quality, Responsibly Sourced Raw Materials
1.Have you established publicly available sustainability purchasing guidelines for your direct suppliers that address issues such as environmental compliance, employment practices and product/ingredient safety?
2.Have you obtained 3rd party certifications for any of the products that you sell to Walmart?

People and Community: Ensuring Responsible and Ethical Production
1.Do you know the location of 100 percent of the facilities that produce your product(s)?
2.Before beginning a business relationship with a manufacturing facility, do you evaluate the quality of, and capacity for, production?
3.Do you have a process for managing social compliance at the manufacturing level?
4.Do you work with your supply base to resolve issues found during social compliance evaluations and also document specific corrections and improvements?
5.Do you invest in community development activities in the markets you source from and/or operate within?

giving a damn about the grand canyons

The Bush Administration and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's attempts at multi-purpose management of our great environmental resources are like SUVs - neither sport, nor utilitarian. It's a bloated, out-dated, and wasteful approach to environmental management. But that's never kept them from celebrating a brief tap-turning by holding press conferences and calling it a good day. Pass the cigars and the lite beer. Now eat my cake.

This same approach is played out all over the country, notably on the Missouri River, where a handful of powerful farm and barge lobbyists continue to extort millions of tax dollars annually from citizens using hijinks and buzz words about feeding the world and homeland security. It's bunk.

The science has, and continues to prove that alluvial farmland created and nourished by a riverine system isn't harmed by more natural-like flows. Even a middle-school science student understands this connection. As do farmers. Businesses masquerading as farmers, choose to ignore this function, because they want the taxpayer to continue to support them. The irony of the laissez-faire approach touted by Republicans is that it's just the opposite, it's completely hands-on, and leveraged on the side of the money-changers.

Eliminating the natural flows on the Missouri River have set in place an unsustainable agricultural economy, especially where twice-subsidized corn is grown for ethanol production which uses more foreign oil to produce than it offsets and serves to toxify another vital resource, the Gulf of Mexico, in the process. There are more canoes now on the river than barges but recreational users don't have the myopia or checkbooks of greedy corporations.

But when confronted by the facts, lobbyists cry science foul and distort the facts to line their pocketbooks as well as the campaign coffers of Republican Senators like Kit Bond who push millions in earmarks through Congress every year to keep themselves and the system bloated. Everyone profits but the American people.

When will it end? When the public says "Enough. Stop. You're out, this is the nation's resource, not that of the special interests."