Earlier this year, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon kicked off his company’s biannual sustainability milestone meeting by showing off a new, improved bottle of detergent: the Purex PowerShot. Developed by Walmart with the manufacturer, Henkel, the product uses less water and is 30% more efficient and 50% more effective than the old version, but costs the same, McMillon said. Partnering to create a better product is a process Walmart can replicate “hundreds of thousands of times over again,” he said. Indeed, the world’s largest retailer does sustainability on a massive scale. It has been 10 years since former CEO Lee Scott kicked off a new era of corporate responsibility at Walmart by establishing three goals: to be 100% supplied by renewable energy, to eliminate waste from its massive system, and to create a more sustainable supply chain. Walmart today gets 26% of its electricity from renewable sources and operates with 9% less energy intensity than in 2010. Nearly 1,300 of its suppliers now use its Sustainability Index—and by the end of 2015 the company will have eliminated 20 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions from its supply chain. The company estimates its suppliers will increase the recycled content in their packaging by 1 billion pounds by 2020. Walmart set another example in 2015 when it raised the minimum wage for all workers, spurring rivals like Target and TJX to boost pay as well.
