F O R WAR D P E O P L E
Big Changes at the Big Box
with its massive stores and incessant promotion of throwaway consumer goods, Wal-Mart
has long been anathema to the environmental community. But recently the retailer has taken
a high-profile plunge into greenery, designing less-wasteful stores and pledging to increase
the fuel efficiency of its vehicles by 25 percent. It has also become the world’s largest seller of
organic milk and buyer of organic cotton.
Should environmentalists take a fresh look at Wal-Mart? To find out, Plenty talked with Tyler
Elm, a conservation biologist who became a key orchestrator of Wal-Mart’s green makeover.
How did an environmentalist start working
for Wal-Mart?
I have an undergraduate degree in earth and
biological sciences and a Master’s in resource
and environmental management. I worked as
a conservation biologist for five years in the
forest of British Columbia. Then I got my
MBA and started trying to bring the business
side and the environmental side together.
What is your job?
As senior director of corporate strategy and
sustainability, I have three tasks. One is to
develop a business strategy of sustainability.
The second is to develop mechanisms to
integrate sustainability into the business.
The last is to get the business to start seeing
sustainability as a way to help drive profit.
ters, self-distribution. We grew tremendously.
But that emphasis often resulted in a disconnect in how we were perceived.
So where does sustainability fit in?
We see a lot of opportunity here—it’s profitability and the opportunity to do good.
What changes will Wal-Mart customers see?
They might see buildings constructed in a
different way. Years ago, we had a vinyl-based
floor that was waxed. We now have highgloss, polished concrete floors. The business
benefit of the newer floors is that they’re lowmaintenance. The environmental benefit is
that you don’t have the vinyl or the chemicals
for maintenance.
BY RICHARD BRADLEY
Wal-Mart is making a huge push into
organics.
There’s a lot happening there. We’re expanding a locally-grown, locally-sold program.
Is it good to have an organic tomato in Arkansas that’s grown in California and flown
across the country? What’s the greenhouse
gas imprint of that tomato versus something
that’s sold and grown in Arkansas?
Here’s another example: peaches. Historically, they were grown in California and
shipped all over the country, and the average
distance from California to the East Coast
was 2,800 miles. When you think that trucks
were getting six miles to the gallon….
We now have nine growing regions, and
the average distance from farm to store is
300 miles. We’re saving over 7,000 barrels of
diesel fuel a year on peaches alone.
Are you responding to demand for organics
or creating it?
Customers demand a fresh, quality product.
And when it’s grown locally, people want
to support that—especially if it doesn’t cost
them more.
That’s pretty subtle. What else?
In our company’s early years, the business
model that worked was for Wal-Mart to serve
the underserved in small communities. In
the ’90s, the goal was to exploit the business
model—everyday low prices, being an agent
for the customer, the concept of super-cen-
‘‘
Most of our stores have daylight harvesting.
If you look up, you’ll see skylights. That
means that the lights in the store actually
dim in accordance with the daylight outside,
which both reduces greenhouse gas emissions
and is good for the business.
YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO LIVE IN
NEW YORK OR SAN FRANCISCO TO
BUY PRODUCTS THAT ARE HEALTHFUL
AND GOOD FOR THE PLANET.” —TYLER ELM
24 | Feb/Mar/07 plentymag.com
For a discounter like Wal-Mart, the high
price of organics must be challenging.
Sustainability has traditionally been a white,
elitist issue. We’re trying to integrate it with the
low-cost business model. You shouldn’t have to
live in New York or San Francisco to buy products that are healthful and good for the planet.
Some environmentalists say that Wal-Mart
is really just trying to clean up its image.
I’m keeping track of how many stakeholders
from the environmental community, instead
of standing outside throwing rocks, are now
inside helping us resolve issues.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY WAL-MART STORES, INC.
Can you translate that?