2009 Consumer Goods Registry: Retail

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

While driving substantial growth around the world, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has also made progress becoming a much more environmentally-responsible company. For example, it committed to reduce phosphates in laundry and dish detergents in the Americas region by 70 percent by 2011 and made its first substantial purchase of wind energy in the United States, which would supply up to 15 percent of the retailer's total energy load in approximately 360 Texas stores and other facilities. Most recently, the media was buzzing with news about Wal-Mart's latest "green" initiative: A worldwide sustainable product index that aims to establish a single source of data for evaluating the sustainability of products. "All in all, this is one heck of an ambitious project, one that will doubtless take months to pull off. But it would (again) establish Wal-Mart as a differentiator in the retail world," says SmartPlanet.com blogger Heather Clancy.