Wal-Mart Trades Yellow Smiley for Green One?

While deflecting the responsibility for paying its employees a living wage to Congress (where WM will probably spend lots of cash lobbying against it), Wal-Mart has announced its intent to be a "good steward for the environment." This sounds a lot like Bush's phrasing during the Presidential debates last fall. It also smacks of conservative Christian Bible talk (see example). Stewards manage the property of others-- whose property is the environment, exactly? God's? (ugh) Future generations? (more plausible) It's also a word that tends to be used in conjunction with inorganic, inanimate objects that can't care for themselves, and it is language that privileges the role of the caretaker.

Anyway.

Here's an excerpt from today's AP report:

Tom Rubel, who heads consultant Retail Forward in Columbus, Ohio, said Scott was leading a genuine effort to adopt new standards.

"I do think that this is a departure. This is sort of vintage Wal-Mart. They have listened, and learned, and now they have set a course and they've established some aggressive goals and now they're going to go after it very aggressively," Rubel said.

Scott said the environmental plan was part of goals set after a year of talks with Wal-Mart's employees, customers and critics that he said showed many of the issues where the company was on the defensive could be opportunities instead.

Scott said those meetings did not include any labor unions or groups such as Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart, formed in the past year to coordinate campaigns against the retailer by labor, environmental, women's rights and community groups.

"We met with people who quite honestly have asked us not say who they are. We did not meet with those people who simply wish we did not exist as a company," Scott said when asked about the two campaign organizations. Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart say they want to reform the company, not shut it down.

Wal-Mart's targets for raising fuel and energy efficiency and reducing packaging waste are bold but the credibility will depend on whether the company reports its progress to the public, one environmental expert said.

"Wal-Mart is one of the world's largest companies in the world so they have a huge influence in the marketplace. There is a huge opportunity for them to influence the marketplace," said Elizabeth Cook, vice president of World Resources Institute in Washington D.C.

"Wal-Mart will win its skeptics over once it shows that it can deliver on these commitments," she added.

I'm going to be a good steward of oxygen and not hold my breath.