Walmart's greenwash: Why the retail giant is still unsustainable
Walmart adopted sustainability as a corporate strategy in 2005.
In This Series
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Four ways enviros can keep Walmart in the hot seat
The world's biggest retailer has gotten an undeserved free pass from many environmentalists. It's time to take a tougher line and set a higher standard, argues Stacy Mitchell in the conclusion to her series on Walmart's greenwashing.
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Eaters, beware: Walmart is taking over our food system
Aubretia Edick has worked at a Walmart store in upstate New York for 11 years, but she won’t buy fresh food there. Bagged salads, she claims, are often past their […]
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Walmart spends big to help anti-environment candidates
In 2006, Walmart made headlines when its vice president for corporate strategy and sustainability, Andrew Ruben, told a congressional committee that the company “would accept a well-designed mandatory cap-and-trade system […]
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Live chat about Walmart’s greenwashing
Join a live chat with Stacy Mitchell about Walmart's sustainability efforts and how they've been coming up short, on Nov. 30 at 3:00 p.m. ET / noon PT.
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Can you say ‘sprawl’? Walmart’s biggest climate impact goes ignored
My, that’s a big abandoned parking lot you have.Photo: Rob StinnettEarlier this year, the New Jersey Sierra Club and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance tried but failed to block a permit […]
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Walmart’s promised green product rankings fall off the radar
In 2009, Walmart created a stir when it announced that it would develop a Sustainability Index to assess the environmental impacts of every item on its shelves and provide an […]
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Think Walmart uses 100% clean energy? Try 2%
Walmart is moving like a tortoise toward its clean-energy goal.Context is critical to understanding Walmart’s sustainability initiatives and their impact on the retailer’s overall environmental footprint. But context has been […]
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Is your stuff falling apart? Thank Walmart
Forever in blue jeans, babe? Not anymore.Photo: bburkyMy friend Tony’s closet is as good a place as any to begin an investigation of Walmart’s environmental impact. Tony has a pair […]
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Walmart by the numbers: Green vs. growth
Walmart’s six-year-old sustainability campaign has helped improve its public image, enabling the company to grow bigger and faster. That growth, ironically, has dramatically increased the retailer’s environmental footprint, and hurt […]
