Taking a look at Wal-mart’s website, the sustainable product index looks as simple as it sounds – create a label for all products they sell which will tell you how safe the product is, where it is made, whether it is made responsibly and all the other information that consumers might need to know that they are buying sustainably.
A sustainability index could do a lot for consumers, much like our Dietary Intake index here in Australia. According to Wal-mart, measuring the sustainability of a product is one of the biggest challenges of today. Well, at least it is for Wal-mart.
Wal-mart believe that their customers want to know more about how a product is made and what impact it has on sustainability. Their proposal is a massive undertaking for the company that shows how important and true they believe this to be.
The first part of this project, which was recently completed, was to send a survey to 100,000 of their global suppliers to evaluate their own company’s sustainability.
The second step would be to help create a consortium of universities that will collaborate and form a global database on the lifecycle of products to then in turn help establish a platform that will power the index. Wal-mart plan to fund the initial stages of it, but have no intention of owning the index.
The last part will be simply creating a tool for consumers so they can easily understand any products rating of sustainability.
While the index won’t be ready until an estimated 2013, there has of course been plenty of talk about it*. One thing that has been confirmed, however, is that high-scoring products will “earn preferential treatment – and likely more shelf space – in Wal-mart stores”. That will be handy for those who supply what is the America’s second largest company.
So the question is – would you like products to have a sustainability index? And what would it look like for you?
*Here are a few articles posted around the net if you are interested in what everybody else is saying!
Will Walmart's Sustainability Index Really Work? - Fast Company
Wal-Mart's Sustainability Index: The Greenest Thing Ever to Happen to Retail? - Treehugger
At Wal-Mart, Labels to Reflect Green Intent - New York Times
