The Walmart Sustainability 2.

Wal-Mart should project a community friendly, environment caring and employee welfare seeking brand image to combat. Emerging threats. Investment in sustainability initiatives like solar energy and recycling could be possible opportunities.

Wal-Mart also has a green goal. It claims that their environmental goal is to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain our natural resources and the environment(Wal-Mart website 2008).

This essay discusses Loblaw Company Limited and its sustainability in the grocery retail industry. This paper will determine whether or not this company is running 100% as an EBM company or if they are failing to do so. We will explore the 5 key aspects of an EBM practice to see if Loblaws abides by all 5 aspects. It will also explore the company’s future goals and current accomplishments in regards to sustainability. This company has been growing immensely over the past 20+ years with over 2000 retail stores in Canada.

Wal-Mart uses its resources in research since before (2011-2012) for the sole purpose of coming up with new ideas and new ways to sustain itself in the local and global community. Locally it provides electricity in stores from solar panels and wind turbines. “Wal-Mart has taken strides to obtain its sustainability objectives. It has opened two environmentally friendly stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado.” The company hopes that these experiments will conserve natural resources, save energy, and reduce pollution. In addition, Wal-Mart is attempting to reduce fossil fuel. Its fleet of hybrid trucks is a new technology for going “green (Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2011).” Similarly, Wal-Mart is “Currently working on four main green areas: waste improvement and recycling, natural resources, energy, and social/community impact. Wal-Mart’s long-term goals are to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, create zero

Due to increasing environmental imbalances, it is necessary for firms to achieve competitive advantages in the area of environmental convergence as well. Wal-Mart is putting continuous efforts from a long time for environment sustainability and energy conservation. It also received Aspen Institute Energy and Environment award for Corporate Energy Efficiency in 2009. Here are a few steps that Wal-Mart has taken to encourage environmental sustainability:

They also decreased the prices of healthy foods to encourage customer to purchase them. Wal-Mart also developed a seal to place on healthier foods with nutrition information rating the levels of sodium, fat, and sugar content (“Paymar Communications”, 2010). The leading factor in Wal-Mart taking this initiative was to reach customers with an interest in a healthy lifestyle. With obesity on the rise across the nation people are becoming more conscious about what they eat and offering healthier foods, organic products, and enhanced labels on the foods will give the customer more options to choose from within the store. By reducing the prices of these healthy products Wal-Mart can increase their customer base, specifically those with an interest in a pursuing a healthy life style. Additionally this will ensure Wal-Mart is leading their competition and could be the benchmark for such companies as Target, K-Mart, Sears, and Costco. The factors influencing the organizations strategies are contingent on the need, not only of the customers, but also Wal-Mart’s increase in sales and profitability. Wal-Mart wants to ensure they not only have healthy customers but also that the organization will garner major gains in sales from these changes. The “Paymar Communications” (2010) website also states that through forging these initiatives, Wal-Mart has figured out a formula to be a good corporate citizen, give consumers superior bargains and still make tons of money; $14.3 billion in

Yes, I do believe Wal-Mart is doing enough to become more sustainable. Wal-Mart is one of the most powerful companies internationally. As with all things that come with power, Wal-Mart’s business practices are scrutinized thoroughly. This includes their relationships with suppliers, employees, consumers, and the environment. In recent years, the environment has become such a big issue that Wal-Mart, as well as other companies have had to respond to this growing concern.

Brian, Your post reminded my of the video from Freeman saying there is a disconnect with how we view business, this seems to be the case for Walmart. Society has a stigma about Walmart which they cannot seem to shake off even with all their efforts. While I agree Walmart should have a individual plan with each community it enters to work together with the community on the environmental impact the store has. Interesting point you brought up how store in Woodbury, CT will try to blend into the other buildings, in my post I talked about a Walmart also blending in to a completely out of the norm space then they are used to - a metropolitan suburb of Manhattan, White Plains, NY. This store could not have the massive one floor store with an even

As much as Walmart may care about the environment, they will not sacrifice some profit now in order to actually help it in the immense way they are able to. These large companies recognize that sustainability is good business, so why will they not actually change? Eventually, they will not have any choice. And by that point, it will cost millions more to reverse the damages. By looking at the environment through an economic lens, Walmart sees the importance of changing but also that the monetary value of changing is not as great as the monetary value of continuing on as they are. Despite already being the largest corporation in the world, Walmart continues to add more harm to the environment because they are still not satisfied with their

Wal-Mart’s job is to manage these tensions, weighing the demands of customers against the concerns of network partners. To offer a profitable mix that includes more green products, Wal- Mart can retire conventional products in favor

Perhaps this is giving Walmart a free ride in the media/marketing as being sustainable without any parties doing their due diligence to verify the actual numbers. As Senge explained, perhaps “Walmart is using going green to offset negative press for treatment of its employees” due their recent lawsuit losses and settlements (Senge, 2010, p. 114). Although Walmart should be commended for its sustainability portfolio, I believe the results of their goals need to be looked at from proportional aspect as well as how/where Walmart sources their products.

Wal-Mart is a business that started in 1962. They started out with just one store in Arkansas and they have grown to have more than 7,000 facilities throughout 13 different countries. Wal-Mart attends to over 176 million customers per year. Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, felt really strongly about customer satisfaction. He stressed customer satisfaction and hard work. He wanted the associates of Wal-Mart to stand by the "ten-foot rule". The "ten-foot rule" was very different. It was something that was not stressed within other organizations, companies, and businesses. This rule stated that once and associate of Wal-Mart got within 10 feet of a customer that associate would have to look the customer in the eyes, acknowledge her or him and then finally ask if he or she needed help (Ferrell 315).

These fishermen who are perhaps the first in line of the supply chain would know best how to promote sustainability and save these seafood from extinction. However, many of their may lack the expertise or capital to take these initatives. Walmart can have programs where they reward their suppliers who come up with innovative ideas to promote sustainability. These ideas should also be supported and funded by

Wal-Mart now has to rebuild their images, procedures on how they conduct business nationwide and how the use ethical business practices. The New York time article reported, “Wal-Mart announces new ethical and environmental principles complete by 2012”. (Robinson, 2008)

Founder Sam Walton explains that, "If we work together, we'll lower the cost of living for everyone"¦we'll give the world an opportunity to see what it's like to save and have a better life." This formed the basis for the new Wal-Mart slogan (which also sums up its mission statement) launched in 2007, "We save people money so they can live better". The business model of the company is also based on the aforementioned slogan. Thus, most strategies are based on cost cutting through-out the supply-chain to reduce prices on