Wal-Mart or not, there's a compelling dollars-and-sense case for package optimization.
It was during the fall 2006 Clinton Global Initiative conference that Wal-Mart President Lee Scott announced his company's sustainability initiative. Since then, many areas of U.S. business have ramped up the focus on environmental stewardship.
The University of Nevada at Reno's Center for Logistics Management reports that 21 of the nation's Fortune 100 companies have since published "sustainability" reports. Forty-four of those companies have social responsibility reports and 63 of them devote Web pages to sustainability or the environment.
For its part, Wal-Mart also maintains a sustainability section on its Web site. Meanwhile - recognizing that environmental stewardship is impacted by daily personal decisions - the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer also has created a personal sustainability plan for each of its employees. Elsewhere, Wal-Mart has created posts for a "senior vice president of sustainability" and a "vice president of packaging and product innovation," the latter position within its Sam's Club division.
Wal-Mart vendors, meanwhile, are learning to use the retailer's sustainable packaging scorecard. This measurement tool provides specific metrics for suppliers to evaluate themselves relative to other vendors. These metrics evolved from a list of favorable attributes known as the "7 R's of Packaging," which are: remove, reduce, reuse, recycle, renew, revenue and read.
After months of consultations, the CPG industry's Packaging Sustainable Value Network - a group of 200 global industry leaders - outlined the following metrics for Wal-Mart's packaging scorecard. When considering a favorable score: