At Wal-Mart, marketing and environmentalism go hand in hand.
The question has been on every environmentalist’s mind since Lee Scott announced Wal-Mart’s sustainability initiatives in 2005: how much of Wal-Mart’s green efforts are genuine, and how much are just greenwashing?
Two articles from Advertising Age this week provide some insight. Both pieces examine the relationship between Wal-Mart’s advertising firms and its sustainability initiatives. The first article, “‘Come as You Are’ to Help Environment”, reveals that Wal-Mart’s green initiatives did indeed start as a marketing campaign and nothing more. The person speaking on the issue? Not a sustainability expert, but a representative from Wal-Mart’s advertising firm, the Martin Agency.
Mark Hughes, director of the ad firm, insists that despite its initial duplicity, Wal-Mart has become a true believer in sustainability. The company has launched a huge marketing campaign around the idea, and many of Lee Scott’s public statements reinforce Wal-Mart’s green image. But Hughes also notes that the company - and its marketing machine - focus more on what consumers can buy to help the environment, and less on what Wal-Mart is actually doing on the issue.
Ad Age’s second piece, “Who’s in Charge of Green?”, highlights the fact that Wal-Mart’s marketing staff vastly outnumbers the company’s sustainability team, and most of the go-to sustainability reps are actually part of the marketing department. Adam Werbach, the company’s sustainability golden boy, is employed by Saatchi & Saatchi, a marketing firm, not Wal-Mart’s sustainability department.
What does it mean for Wal-Mart’s environmental initiatives to be written about in an advertising industry magazine, rather than an environmental publication? Perhaps what Ad Age itself admits: that consumers are increasingly skeptical of corporate green campaigns, and are more and more often calling companies out for greenwashing. This could be disastrous for Wal-Mart’s green campaign, and the company implement more comprehensive changes if its intends to capitalize on a “green” image.
Who’s in Charge of Green? [Advertising Age]
‘Come as You Are’ to Help Environment [Advertising Age]
Tags: "Adam Werbach", Greenwashing, wal-mart
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 am
I read about Wal-mart working with suppliers to eliminate unnecessary packaging. Their example was a box of salt, er, Hamburger Helper. Go feel a box in the grocery store. It is half full. Everyone knows this. Wal-mart said to the manufacturer,”Let’s reduce the size of this package”. They figured that if they do this it will save tons of paper and ink. It will also save, they said, 500 truckloads of Hamburger Helper every year. Fuel, handling, etc. saved. Go down the food aisle. Most things are packaged this way!!! If Wal-mart can get the manufacturer to change (they have ways of doing this) the packaging, all stores will follow their lead. HUGE impact on the environment. Now if they can get the salt out of all the food they sell……………. Wal-mart is the most hated but most influential retailer out there. When they change things, everyone follows. They can be a force for good change as well as important provider of low cost goods for the poor.
July 7th, 2008 at 4:10 am
One of my biggest concerns with walmart, besides employee exploitation, putting local businesses out of business, etc, is the way they put a squeeze play on their suppliers. What they do, according to a supplier who used to sell to a local hardware store, is make a contract which looks great, for more product than the supplier has had to produce before. The supplier then retools, hires, changes his whole operation to supply walmart and only walmart. Next year, the contract is for a lesser price per widget, and the supplier, all dressed up with only walmart at the door, has to go with him. He has cut loose his previous buyers, makes more product than he was selling before so would have to expand too much to pay for the capital expenses he already incurred. So it’s walmart or sellout. What if that happens to ‘green’ suppliers? The green dangled in front of them may be too hard for them to resist, like the widget guy. And they don’t want to pay well for their products, that’s why they go to china. So they can do all the ‘greening’ they want, I will still stay away….!
August 18th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
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