Two More Positive Steps for Wal-Mart

Thank you to Net Impact for pointing me to the first article.

Wal-Mart is aiming to give consumers information about the sustainability practices of their electronics suppliers by scoring them on "energy efficiency, durability, upgradability, end-of-life solutions, and the size of the package containing the product." The hope is that with the Wal-Mart's power of their suppliers, they will be able to influence more positive and more sustainable practices in the manufacturing and packaging of electronics products, and my hope would be that they will be able to encourage a more sustainable end-of-life for the products which will help increase and make for healthier recycling.

Recently, Wal-Mart announced that they are going to replace its 'big rig' fleet with a hybrid fleet of the same type, thus saving millions of gallons of gas every year.

Wal-Mart and SEIU Discuss Universal Health Care

From the 2/8/07 New York Times: Lee Scott, the CEO of Wal-Mart, and Andrew Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) got together yesterday to discuss our nation's healthcare problem. They announced their intention to seek support of universal healthcare coverage (by around 2012); shared responsibility for healthcare coverage among individuals, businesses, and government; and expanded coverage. Execs from AT&T and Intel as well as leaders of several nonprofits were also present at the meeting.

Wal-Mart Settles in OT Case

Wal-Mart has agreed to pay more than $33 million in overdue overtime pay after turning itself in to the Labor Department for underpaying for workers' overtime. They also have taken measures to try to ensure this type of mistake does not occur again.

The article also states that Wal-Mart was found to have overpaid about 215,000 workers over the last five years - they will not, however, seek these overpayments.

Wal-Mart Mislabeling Organics??? & Congress and Climate Change

This is a story to keep your eye on. A group that promotes sustainable farming is accusing Wal-Mart of mislabeling non-organic foods as organic. The advocacy group, The Cornucopia Institute, said that almost all of the Wal-Mart stores they checked in a five-state test had violations. In addition, The Cornucopia Institute claims to have found these violations back in September and reported them to Wal-Mart. When the group performed some tests recently, violations still occured.

The Cornucopia House has filed a complaint against Wal-Mart at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a result of these alleged violations.

Perhaps the most unfortunate part of this, if the charges are true, is the fact that, as the article points out, many people are unsure of what organics actually are, so these violations would only add to the confusion as people become less trusting of organics.
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I also wanted to post an article that will appear in tomorrow's NY Times print edition. The article, titled "Bills on Climate Move to Spotlight in New Congress" (may require registration). Basically it speaks of a few of the ideas floating around Congress - and the fact that there are a few is good to hear.

One idea, capping carbon dioxide emissions, even has the support of some of the executives of the electric utility industry. That idea was criticized by one climate expert, Richard G. Richels, who feels that it will cause industry to use existing cleaner technologies, but not prompt investments in technological breakthoughts that are necessary.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to create a special committee on climate - unfortunately, according to the article, the reason for the committee is a way around Democrat John Dingell of Michigan, who strongly supports the automobile industry.

Barack Obama, who looks to throw his hat into the presidential contender ring, signed on to legislation that is co-sponsored by John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

The article also asks the question of what President Bush will do - his State of the Union is coming up, so what might he say about climate change. Of course, what he does is more important than what he says!