by Rita Mcconnell

Created on: December 27, 2008

If anything should convince the Wal-Mart haters that the retailer is not out to destroy the world, it's the company's achievements related to the environment.

Yes, I said the environment.

But before I go on, I want to be clear. Wal-Mart is a corporation, and like any for-profit entity it has issues and creates them for others. It's incredible growth and expansion across the country has most certainly displaced and destroyed many viable, smaller retail outfits which often offered better and more diverse merchandise. But in many ways, so has the rise of the Internet and online shopping. Wal-Mart, like any discount retailer definitely has labor issues. And while it certainly has a way to go in becoming an employer of choice, it has also become a target for those looking to place blame for the trails of the worker.

Yet while the largest retailer in the country does struggle with a myriad of relevant questions from the greater world many of which are products of its own making - it has recently looked at its impact on the environment, acted, and shown the world, how when it dedicates itself to a cause, the potential good it can generate is almost mind-boggling.

I'm not exactly schooled on who in the Wal-Mart hierarchy started the green wheels turning, but I can tell you this. Wal-Mart's conviction on sustainability lured a man named Adam Werbach, once the youngest-ever president of the Sierra Club, into the ranks of its many consultants, and with his help began doing amazing things. Werbach's work with Wal-Mart focuses on its employees, ironically, and develops ways to grow the company green from its employees out.

But that's not the amazing part. Wal-Mart has thrown the gauntlet at the feet of its suppliers. Its initial gathering a few years back when it told other companies that if they wished to continue doing business with Wal-Mart, they would cut their product packing by at least five percent, was instantly legendary. And that demand continues to bring results from the board rooms of companies producing the products on Wal-Mart's shelves.

Wal-Mart also made a commitment to energy efficiency, which was best seen by consumers when it poured marketing dollars into promoting CFLs or compact fluorescent lighting. Placing CFLs front and center in its stores, and pricing them at a level where the majority of its customers would see them as competitive with the old fashioned light bulb was genius. Remember, Wal-Mart is a DISCOUNT retailer, meaning most of its customers

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