Wal-Marts “green business revolution”

Lee Scott formulated that “Wal-Mart’s environmental goals are simple and straightforward:

1. To be supplied by 100% renewal energy.
2. To create zero waste.
3. To sell products that sustain our resources and environment.”

This “revolution” led to a book, “Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes. The book itself boasts: “What happens when a renowned river guide teams up with the CEO of one of the largest — and least Earth-friendly — corporations in the world? Nothing less than a green business revolution reveals Edward Humes… He tells the inside story of the little-known and unlikely partnership between former Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and white water expert-turned Blu Skye sustainability consultant Jib Ellison, and their struggle to redefine what it means to be green in the world of big business.”

“Their efforts transformed a small project initially intended to insulate Wal-Mart from environmental criticism into a massive sustainability makeover, which now has snowballed beyond the retailer to influence whole industries, from apparel to dairy to banking. Now their fresh take on sustainability is empowering a virtual second industrial revolution based on a simple truth: that the clean, green, efficient, less-wasteful, less polluting way of doing business can also be the most profitable way of doing business.”

References

1. Humes, Edward. Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution. HarperBusiness, 2011.