Walmart's press release states their intended process in this endeavor:
The innovative program to reduce GHGs has three main components:
Selection: Walmart will focus on the product categories with the highest embedded carbon. This is defined as the amount of life cycle GHG emissions per unit multiplied by the amount the company sells. To find the embedded carbon, the ASC reviewed the GHG emissions associated with all Walmart product categories. This approach ensures the project team focuses on the categories that have the greatest opportunity for reductions. Reductions can come from any part of a product’s life cycle.
Action: For a project to be included as part of this goal, it must reduce GHGs from a product in either the sourcing of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, customer use or end-of-life disposal. Walmart must demonstrate it had direct influence on the reduction and show how that reduction would not have occurred without Walmart’s participation.
Assessment: Suppliers and Walmart will jointly account for the reductions. ClearCarbon will perform a quality assurance review of those claims to ensure methodology, completeness and calculations are correct. When the claims meet the quality assurance check, PricewaterhouseCoopers will assess under consulting standards whether the defined procedures were followed consistently to quantify the reduction claim.
[image-1]Walmart's suppliers will not be required to take part in this new plan, but they made it clear that they're more interested in companies that share their goals. (So it's pretty much "put out or get out", right?). Though this has led critics to think that those suppliers will just end up making cheaper, shabbier products in order to cut corners and still stick with Walmart's requests.
Mike Duke added, “Like everything we do at Walmart, this commitment ends up coming down to our customers. Reducing carbon in the life cycle of our products will often mean reducing energy use. That will mean greater efficiency and, with the rising cost of energy, lower costs, making our business stronger and more competitive. And, as we help our suppliers reduce their energy use, costs and carbon footprint, we’ll be helping our customers do the same thing.”
Alright, Walmart, you've got until 2015 - let's see you put your money where your mouth is and make this happen.
Read more about this subject from this article on The New York Times' site and see Walmart's press release. More information on Walmart's program to reduce GHG emissions is available at: walmartstores.com/greenhousegas.
