Walmart has unveiled its newest initiative to help consumers “live better,” a dedicated online storefront filled with more than 3,000 items produced by 100 leading sustainability companies. In order to sell via the storefront, a manufacturer must be a leader among its peers in the Walmart Sustainability Index. The store spans multiple categories, including grocery, household, electronics, baby, and health and beauty.
It is too soon to understand if Walmart’s transparency will change shopper’s behavior, but studies suggest that all else being equal (especially price), consumers will choose a more sustainable product. This is good news for the manufacturers featured on the site, including Unilever, Musco Family Olives, SC Johnson, Ocean Spray, Mondalez, Kraft, Nestle. In addition to the storefront, Walmart has also launched fact sheets for each product category, enabling consumers to educate themselves on the methods and metrics used to score suppliers. Check out the full category list for grocery here. To learn more about The Sustainability Consortium, the organization behind Walmart’s scorecard, click here.
Introducing the Walmart Sustainability Leaders Shop
March 2, 2015 via Walmart.com
The Walmart Sustainability Leaders shop makes it easier to find products made by companies that have scored as best in class in Walmart’s Sustainability Index.
Walmart believes that customers shouldn’t have to choose between affordability and sustainability – that’s why all companies that supply to Walmart are eligible to participate in this program.
On Walmart.com, more than 10,000 items made by companies identified as leaders in a category (like televisions or plastic toys) through the Walmart Sustainability Index are marked with a Sustainability Leaders badge. This represents nearly 3,000 unique products. The Sustainability Index is a supplier scorecard program that is the result of years of work with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), an independent, nonprofit organization that collaborates with more than 100 product manufacturers, nonprofits, and academic researchers to create science-based measurement tools.
The Sustainability Leaders badge does not make representations about the environmental or social impact of an individual product, only that the manufacturer has scored well enough to earn a badge across all of the products they make in that category. For example, a television identified with a Sustainability Leaders badge indicates that the manufacturer has been identified as a Sustainability Leader among its peers in the television category for its sustainability management practices.
Although the badge isn’t specific to the individual product’s environmental impact, our supplier and category level approach is intended to help customers identify companies leading in sustainability.
Learn more about what the badge means, how companies qualify for the badge, how the Sustainability Index promotes transparency and more through these frequently asked questions.
