{"id":7989,"date":"2016-11-03T17:37:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T21:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/thinking-walmart-as-an-awefull-company-think-twice\/"},"modified":"2016-11-03T17:37:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T21:37:55","slug":"walmart-i-hate-to-love-you","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/walmart-i-hate-to-love-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart, I hate to love you!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think twice<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m sure many of you have the same perception about Walmart: a place where one can buy my almost everything at a low price yet a\u00a0ruthless greedy company known for its polemic practices.<\/p>\n

However, think twice. Walmart might not be the first company that acted on climate change, but it was definitely the one that had the most impact on the whole retail industry. Back in 1990, the company pushed its suppliers to eliminate the paperboard box that used to packed deodorants [1]. It added nothing to the customer experience and, therefore, was an unnecessary\u00a0cost: it occupied\u00a0shelf space, increased shipping fuel costs and\u00a0costed money to produce. The impact was immediate: not only suppliers eliminate the unuseful\u00a0box for Walmart, but they also did so to the entire industry. Result: millions of trees were not cut down, billions of deodorant boxes didn’t end up in landfills. Thanks to who? Yep, Walmart!<\/p>\n


\nBeyond deodorants<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2008, Walmart’s CEO and President Lee\u00a0Scott,\u00a0delivered a famous speech addressing his personal commitment for shaping “the company of the future” [2], taking the opportunity to explore some of the company milestones on sustainability. Back in 2005, Walmart embraced environmental practices as a way to improve the company bottom line and reputation [3].<\/p>\n

Walmart committed to several long-term goals such as running its operations solely on renewable energy, creating zero waste and selling products that sustain the earth\u2019s resources and environment\u00a0[3].<\/p>\n

True, you can argue that Walmart\u2019s honest motivations weren\u2019t our planet well-being, but the shareholders\u2019 money: the sustainability efforts have saved millions of dollars to the company. However, it also forced suppliers like General Electric and Procter & Gamble to transform their own business practices [4]. Walmart push for fluorescent bulbs (use up to 75% less electricity than incandescent bulbs) resulted\u00a0in more than 100 million units sold only in 2007. For GE, selling a bulb that lasts longer means fewer sold. But which company will dare to lose Walmart as a customer? GE had no other alternative other than increase production of fluorescent bulbs [5]. And this created a snowball effect that culminated in more Americans adopting incandescent bulbs, reducing overall emissions.<\/p>\n

Procter & Gamble was Walmart next target: it announced an initiative to cut the bottle size of liquid laundry detergent by reducing in 25% its amount of water.\u00a0The result: concentrated liquid laundry detergent saved more than 400 million gallons of water, 95 million pounds of plastic resin, 125 million pounds of cardboard and 520,000 gallons of diesel fuel over three years [6].<\/p>\n

Walmart seemed to have nailed the concept: the herculean company pushed prescription drugs manufacturers to reduce in 50% its products packaging and increased its fleet fuel\u00a0efficiency\u00a0by\u00a025% changing the design of its trucks and optimizing how trailers are loaded and filled [7].<\/p>\n

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