Wal-Mart asks suppliers to calculate environmental costs

How green is your supply chain?
 
It’s not an idle question if you’re one of the 100,000 suppliers to Wal-Mart. Last week, the retail giant announced a plan to have its suppliers calculate the full environmental costs of making their products. Wal-Mart will translate that info into a label that will appear along with the price of the product and other consumer information.
 
The idea is to let consumers make more informed choices about the products they buy: Do they want the lowest possible price, damn our dependence on fossil fuel, or are they willing to pay a little more for a product with a smaller carbon footprint? Now, you'll have the data to make that choice.
 
When we’ll begin to see these new labels is anyone’s guess. According to The Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart says it could take five years or longer to put the systems in place to accurately capture the data, do the math and create a label. Some outside experts claim it could be up and running by 2011. And, hey, they’re already doing something like this in the U.K. Tesco, the large British grocer, has been labeling some of the products in its stores since the spring of 2008.
 
Is this a good idea?
 
First, a little background. While most people think low prices when they think Wal-Mart, I think green. And I’m not just talking about the sales the world’s largest retailer rings up every day at its checkout lanes. For the last several years, Wal-Mart has been focused on meaningful reductions in its carbon footprint and selling more energy-efficient products.

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