Some people just can't win:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-02-2007/0004519190&EDATE=
Wal-Mart Plan to Force Suppliers to Implement Green Agenda is Bad
Business; NLPC Says Effort Unlikely to Appease Critics
FALLS CHURCH, Va., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Legal
and Policy Center (NLPC) today criticized Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott for his
speech in London last night before Prince Charles and 400 business leaders,
in which he said a key component of the company's campaign to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions, allegedly responsible for global warming, will be to
push its business suppliers into reducing their emissions.
Wal-Mart (WMT) had previously announced that it will pressure its
60,000 suppliers to adhere to environmental mandates.
"It is the responsibility of every corporation to be more sustainable,"
said Scott.
Scott insists that Wal-Mart is not trying to coerce its suppliers but
rather is "a cooperative effort of encouragement and support."
"This is simply not true," says John Carlisle, Director of Policy at
NLPC. "Scott and other Wal-Mart executives have said that companies that
don't meet the environmental mandates run a serious risk of losing their
contracts."
Wal-Mart has devised a scorecard to grade the environmental progress of
suppliers which Scott says the company will use to "pick the ones moving in
the right direction."
Likewise, Tim Yatsko, Wal-Mart Senior Vice President for
Transportation, is on record as saying, "We have made it clear that all
things being equal, we'll give business to operators who show they're fully
engaged" in fuel efficiency efforts.
"Wal-Mart is obviously going to muscle its suppliers into paying for
its costly environmental agenda," says Carlisle. "This is a betrayal of the
free market principles that made the company great."
Some environmental groups such as Environmental Defense, the World
Wildlife Fund and Conservation International are especially excited by Wal-
Mart pressuring its supply chain to implement their policies.
Carlisle criticizes these Wal-Mart environmentalists as hypocrites.
"The most common criticism of Wal-Mart is that it destroys small businesses
in an amoral pursuit of corporate profits," says Carlisle. "But now that
Wal-Mart is doing the bidding of a liberal political cause,
environmentalists are ready to jump on its bandwagon."
Ironically, Wal-Mart's aggressive embrace of environmentalism is still
not winning it the broad-based support it desperately seeks. Groups such as
the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth are still skeptical of the
company. Scott has even admitted that there are environmental organizations
that do not want to be linked with Wal-Mart and "have asked that we do not
highlight them."
Carlisle concluded, "Wal-Mart should stop trying to cozy up to
controversial political causes and concentrate on perfecting its business
model. People shop at Wal-Mart for low prices. These new mandates on
suppliers result in higher prices."
Last Month, NLPC released a special report titled Wal-Mart Embraces
Controversial Causes: Bid to Appease Liberal Interest Groups Will Likely
Fail, Hurt Business. The 11,000-word report is authored by Carlisle and may
be downloaded in pdf format at http://www.nlpc.org/pdfs/Wal-
MartSpecial%20Report.pdf
NLPC promotes ethics in public life, and sponsors the Corporate
Integrity Project.
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