Jan 27, 2009

Wal-Mart saves the earth with the innovation of...concentrated laundry detergent?

Hmmm. As cool and happy as the stock boy looks in the photo, that there's some serious greenwashing.

Or worse.

5 comments:

  1. lizJanuary 27, 2009 at 8:37 PM

    hey, better than nothing.

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  2. Steve ThorngateJanuary 28, 2009 at 3:21 PM

    I don't think it is--not if the maximum PR they get for minimum actual effort makes people shop there who might otherwise shop somewhere that's making a more serious effort. Same problem with Starbucks offering fair-trade coffee one day a week and luring customers w/ signs saying that they "brew fair trade coffee"--it is, in fact, worse than nothing when you consider the impact on competing shops that actually brew FT every day.

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  3. Johnny RenoJanuary 29, 2009 at 3:37 PM

    It sounds like Wal-Mart is trying. It is hard for any large entity to just instantly "get it" and do smart, innovative things. I am sure in time they will learn (in their efforts to make more money) how to improve upon this idea. At least their leadership has made a consensus to improve its impact. Isn't that a good thing?

    Not ready to give up wiping quite yet.

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  4. Steve ThorngateJanuary 29, 2009 at 4:04 PM

    Wal-Mart is a huge company that's demonstrated unprecedented power and innovation in other areas. If they wanted to make a serious environmental effort, they have more than enough capacity to do so.

    What they DO want is to run a slick "green" PR campaign, and they're doing a good job--but that's decidedly not the same thing. There's just no evidence that their small environmental progress is a baby step toward anything larger--it's just a byproduct of a PR campaign. (If they could get the PR w/o the concentrated detergent and huge rolls of TP, they would.)

    And the only thing that will motivate them to actually try harder is if enough people call bullshit on them when they're not really trying.

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  5. Johnny RenoJanuary 30, 2009 at 6:50 AM

    Agreed! I think there needs to be a consensus to change with all large retailers. Like many other industries i.e. print.

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