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Environment

Products

Delivering sustainable products

The Sustainability Index is central to our ability to deliver sustainable products for our customers. Launched in 2009 in collaboration with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), the Index helps retailers and their suppliers:

  • Improve the sustainability of the products customers love
  • Integrate sustainability into the business of buying and selling merchandise
  • Reduce cost, improve product quality and create a more resilient supply chain
  • Strengthen customers’ trust in retailers and the brands we carry
Index progress
  • More than 700 Walmart categories covered by the Index
  • Rolled out or piloted in the U.S. and six international markets
  • Index score improvement
    (year over year) in all major business units

Over the past two years, TSC significantly expanded the categories covered by the Index, enabling Walmart to deliver powerful tools to more buyers and suppliers in more markets. With these tools in hand, buyers and suppliers can understand, measure and drive innovation that improves the sustainability of the products customers buy. At Walmart, we’re using these tools to collaborate up and down the supply chain on projects that improve Index scores by addressing key hot spots, while driving efficiency, reducing waste and saving our customers money so they can live better. Examples of these projects across each of our major businesses are detailed later in this section.

TSC update

In 2013, TSC continued to establish itself as the global leader in consumer goods industry sustainability measurement and reporting. Through its growing presence in China and the implementation of its tools across global supply chains, TSC is changing the way products are designed, produced, distributed and used around the world.

  • Delivered tools to help decision-makers understand and measure sustainability covering 492 types of products (unique “bricks” in the Global Product Classification System)
  • Engaged 150 organizations in consumer goods sustainability
  • Established in three countries with contributing staff, researchers and members
Delivering impact

While a growing number of buyers and suppliers are using the Index to understand and improve sustainability in their own categories, this program enables us to look across our business at hot spots in our overall supply chain. We’ve identified priorities in each of our businesses and have used them to develop industry-leading programs that are accelerating product sustainability across the industry. From sustainable chemistry to fertilizer optimization and energy, we’re using our size and scale to deliver results against the biggest issues and opportunities.

One great example of how we’re delivering impact is through the progress we’ve made on our goal to eliminate 20 million metric tons (MMT) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the supply chain. Through our strong partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund and by leveraging the Index as a tool to gain buy-in and create accountability, we’ve:

  • Eliminated 7.575MMT of GHG by the end of 2013
  • Implemented projects that are estimated to eliminate 18MMT of GHG emissions by the end of 2015