Walmart's Credibility And Sustainability Efforts

As stated on the corporate website (2017), “Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, where 2.3 million associates meet the needs of more than 260 million customers every week.” These numbers are huge, and with so many locations around the globe, they have had allegations been made by employees regarding their dissatisfaction about poor work conditions, gender discrimination, low wages, poor benefits, and inadequate health care. Walmart has been criticized for its policies against labor unions and this issue has prompted public outrage, (Johansson, 2005) which is of great concern for the market. The company has also faced criticism for being anti-union, but it has claimed that it is rather pro-associate, whereby employees

We all want to do what is best for our families, our friends, ourselves and our country. However, our nation’s number one corporation is under constant ridicule for being a negative part of the American way. Wal-Mart is the overall number one on the fortune 500, over taking Exxon Mobile after a one year slip to the number 2 spot. However Wal-Mart is constantly being ridiculed by media and everyday citizens, its employees included. These opinions are often brought forth because of four major issues; the pay and benefits packages of Wal-Mart employees, the quality and buying of their goods from China, big box corporation killing local businesses ,and Wal-Mart taking jobs away and not creating

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

by Neal Peirce The Wal-Mart Watch campaign, a labor-environmental group highly critical of America's mega-mega retailer, recently launched more than 1,000 events nationwide for its "Higher Expectations Week." "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," a scathing documentary by independent filmmaker Robert Greenwald with a focus on Wal-Mart's business tactics and treatment of workers, began to play to audiences across the country. Wal-Mart is fighting its critics with waves of television ads celebrating happy workers and the company's gifts to local charities. But the action goes much further. Across state capitals, legislators are into spirited debates over whether Wal-Mart should be forced to pay adequate health benefits

creating a scarce number of jobs available for American workers. Additionally, Walmart employees are mistreated in the workplace. Unions are discouraged and workers ' income are not enough to pay for Walmart 's $75 health insurance. Walmart also contributes to the earth 's pollution in which the corporation had been severely fined for violating environmental regulations. Although Walmart is a convenient one-stop-shop, it’s negative reputation makes critics question buying products.

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

The company has hired undocumented workers to work at their store. The company will use outside contractors for other maintenance jobs. In 2005, Walmart paid the U.S. $11 Million in lawsuit on illegal workers. Wal-Mart has said that its executives knew nothing about the employment of illegal immigrants before the raids and that the janitors were hired by contractors that Wal-Mart used to clean its stores late at night. Company officials said they used more than 100 contractors to clean more than 700 of its stores. "We acknowledge that we should have had better safeguards in place to ensure that our contractors were hiring only legal workers," said Mona Williams, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman (Greenhouse, 2005). CNN said that “The more than four-year investigation was led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania” (Wal-Mart Settles Illegal Worker Suit for $11 Million.). While some might argue that this gives these workers a job and income to support their families, it must be noted that the hiring of these workers means that Walmart will likely pay them less than the minimum wage. Moreover, these workers are also more likely to accept working hours that are longer and are less likely to decline dangerous jobs. Therefore, this is not necessarily Walmart acting altruistically to help undocumented workers, but rather, it is about exploitation of workers because of their undocumented status (Medina, 2006). Moreover, it also skirts labour and immigration laws by hiring and paying undocumented workers under the table. As stated on the Washington post “345 illegal immigrants worked as contract janitors in Walmart stores between 1998 and 2008 but the chain’s management was unaware of the problem.” (Barbaro, 2005). Hiring undocumented workers means that there is less tax revenue from wages paid to these undocumented workers and this impact the public funds. Given the amount of revenue the

In their International Labor Rights Forum article, “ILRF Calls on Brands to Join Fire Safety Program Following Deadly Fire” ILRF sheds light on how Wal-Mart exploits their workers in third world countries. On November 24, 2012 in Bangladesh, a factory fire began in one of Walmart’s

Since its establishment in 1962, Wal-Mart has grown to be one of the biggest conglomerates in the world. Inevitably, with the expansion of the company, the weight and number of social and ethical issues facing the company has increased.

make their workers to think that they are their business partners, and not excessive work users. Even if they proclaim, about associate’s rights as employees, and the freedom of expressing themselves, Walmart dismisses every individual who speak out for her or his wage increase, or improvement of working conditions. Not only that Walmart financially exploits its workers, but it also took away their rights, and chances for any improvements at the work place. People have the right to get a minimum or the living wage which is still not enough to support a family for a full-time worker, and imagine receiving even less than that, like it happens in those large chain markets like in Walmart.

In contrast, many people and organizations have argued that Walmart is not holding true to their original sustainable commitments. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Walmart's greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow over the last 10 years, and it’s percentage of renewable energy is inadequate compared to other major corporations. Stacy Mitchell, the author of the report and a senior researcher at the Institute believes that the core issue behind Walmart’s lack of action is that they will not change their unsustainable business model to make sustainable advancements. She says that, "Walmart has a highly unsustainable business model, built on shipping goods long distances, selling mountains of very short-lived products,

Wal-Mart would rather bribe factories money to move on and brush it under the carpet instead of taking responsibility for their involvement. So, one would have to think this is not due to the lack of knowledge of the practices in the factories, but the choice to ignore and not care of these practices. In 2012, Wal-Mart choose to “make payments to Mexican officials of more than $24 million noted by The New York Times and in Asia there were 90 reports within a year and half period” (Sethi) to cover situations up demonstrating that money talks.

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.

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:

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)