Armed with chemical sustainability data, Wal-Mart mulls next move

摘要

While retail giant Wal-Mart says it has plans this year to roll out an index that measures the sustainability of its consumer products, an adviser to the company's sustainability initiative says it still hasn't been decided how the data will be used to move toward safer products. Notice of the upcoming pilot of the sustainability index was included in the retailer's 2011 Global Responsibility Report, released in April. The index comes from the Home and Personal Care Working Group of The Sustainability Consortium, a stakeholder alliance supported by Wal-Mart and administered by the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University, and the GreenWERCS tool developed as part of the company's Chemical Intensive Products Sustainable Value Network. The report says the rollout "will be done with the merchants in our consumables business to determine how sustainability information can be integrated into our core business."