Wal-Mart to put eco-ratings on products

In its most recent attempt to clean up its image and save the world, Wal-Mart announced plans to place eco-ratings on its all product labels. Wal-Mart plans on getting all 10,000 of its suppliers to answer a 15-question survey about their practices. Sounds great, but Wal-Mart’s raison d’être is discount prices and cheap goods manufactured in places like China. One has to wonder whether this is a good or even workable idea.

Are they sure they want to know? Are they comfortable honestly reporting the results, never mind putting it on all of their labels? Is this information even going to make a difference to the average Wal-Mart shopper, just looking for deals?

President and CEO Mike Duke believes this approach will push their suppliers to change their practices, which may affect the entire industry. They’ll use a green index that would be very similar to the nutritional info on food packages.

Questions in the survey are divided under the headings “Energy and Climate,” “Material Efficiency,” “Natural Resources: Producing High Quality, Responsibly Sourced Raw Materials,” and “People and Community: Ensuring Responsible and Ethical Production.”

Is it even feasible to ask these questions of all of their suppliers? Many of its suppliers may not have good answers to “do you know the location of 100 percent of the facilities that produce your product(s)?” or “Have you set publicly-available water use reduction targets?”

Even if they do get an answer, is it something that Wal-Mart can put on their packaging?