Green steps at Hawaii’s Wal-Marts

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant, is taking green steps, with many of those efforts being spearheaded in Hawaii.

Wal-Mart's stores in Hawaii, for instance, will be part of a pilot solar project outfitting 22 Wal-Mart stores, Sam's Club and a distribution center with solar power systems. The Sam's Club on Keeaumoku Street already has 1,488 photovoltaic panels on its rooftop.

The Wal-Mart in Pearl City also has skylights, and a daylight harvesting system that automatically dims and turns off store light during periods of higher natural daylight.

All Wal-Mart stores are taking plastic bags back for recycling, and Wal-Mart Kahului is even offering to take plastic bags from other retailers on the Valley Isle, as well as Molokai and Lanai.

Large recycling bales of plastic bags, plastic shrinkwrap and hangers are sandwiched between cardboard, and shipped in containers back to California for recycling.

Wal-Mart says other efforts include an initiative to reduce its packaging over the next five years, to offer more eco-friendly products to consumers and to seek energy-efficient electronics.

Environmental advocates, however, say that although they commend Wal-Mart's efforts, it has a long way to go before it can call itself "green."

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FULL STORY »

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is going green on a giant scale, with some of those efforts being spearheaded in Hawaii.

Besides a pilot solar project, which will outfit 22 Wal-Mart stores, Sam's Clubs and a distribution center in Hawaii and California with solar power systems, the big-box corporation based in Bentonville, Ark., is also stepping up its recycling efforts.

All Wal-Mart stores in Hawaii - eight discount stores and two Sam's Club - have set up recycling bins for plastic bags that it takes back from customers.

As has become the trend among most major supermarkets and drug store chains, Wal-Mart has since October 2007 also offered a black, reusable tote for sale.

The $1 tote says: "Paper or plastic? Neither."

WAL-MART’S GREEN INITIATIVES » Plans to install solar on 22 stores in Hawaii and California. Sam's Club Keeaumoku already has been outfitted with solar. » Collecting plastic bags from other retailers on Maui - and offering to do so for retailers on Molokai and Lanai - to ship back to the mainland for recycling. » Working with suppliers to offer eco-friendly products, energy-efficient electronic products. » Became the world's largest buyer of organic cotton in 2006. » Reached a goal of selling 100 million compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, in 2007. » Launched an initiative to reduce overall packaging by 5 percent over five years. More information on Wal-Mart's green initiatives are available at http://walmartstores.com/sustainability.

In 2007, Wal-Mart stores in Hawaii shipped about 6,600 tons of recyclables back to the mainland - including plastic bags, beverage containers and cardboard.

Wal-Mart ships what it calls a "sandwich bale" on a container back to the mainland for recycling - basically, plastic shrinkwrap, hangers and bags - that are sandwiched between cardboard pieces.

In product selection, Wal-Mart is also getting on the green bandwagon, with new offerings of compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, (it reached a goal of selling 100 million by the end of 2007), concentrated detergent, organic baby food and formula, organic milk, and Clorox Green Works, a new line of household cleaning products.

In its own consumer research, Wal-Mart said it found that a concern for the environment is showing up more and more in shopping baskets among its 200 million annual customers.

The corporation is tracking consumer preferences for eco-friendly products, from extended life paper products to sustainable coffee, through its "Live Better Index," launched in April 2007.

So far, the research has found California to be the leader in the consumption of eco-friendly products.

The company has a vice president of sustainability on staff, and also has at times hired Adam Werbach, the former president of the Sierra Club, as its consultant.

ON NEIGHBOR ISLES

Wal-Mart's efforts on neighbor isles are particularly notable, given that it has offered to take plastic bags from other retailers on the Valley Isle, as well as Molokai and Lanai, for recycling via its container back to the mainland.

Chanda Keawe, store manager of the Wal-Mart in Kahului, says the green movement has had an impact on her, personally, as well as on the employees.

"Such a large company can make a global impact," she said. "But we also encourage associates to choose their own personal sustainability project. Some have chosen to recycle cans or plastics bags, some do a combination, and some are changing to CFLs at home."

On March 22, Wal-Mart Kahului, along with seven other retailers, participated in a Maui Retailers Recycle event - recycling thousands of plastic bags. The bags were shipped back in Wal-Mart's container to California to be recycled into reusable products such as plastic lumber.

As a result of that event, Wal-Mart now voluntarily offers to collect plastic bags from other small retailers on Maui, including Pukalani Superette, Ah Fook's, Haiku Grocery, Kualapuu Market on Molokai as well as the Friendly Market in Kaunakakai, and Pine Isle Market on Lanai.

The Lanai and Molokai markets have not yet collected enough volume to hand over to Wal-Mart, but the offer is still there.

Keawe said Wal-Mart Kahului also has been involved in other efforts, including community workdays.

Wal-Mart has been making an effort to educate more consumers about the availability of the plastic bag recycling bins near store entrances.

"I've noticed that they're always full now," she said. "Just today the receptacles were overflowing, so I do see a difference."

BUILDING GREEN STORES

In Hawaii, so far, Wal-Mart has installed solar panels on top of Sam's Club on Keeaumoku Street.

A total of 1,488 solar photovoltaic panels have been set up on the rooftop, in a partnership with SunEdison Hawaii of Kailua, and is expected to save about 15 percent of the store's electricity needs.

Wal-Mart is also making an effort to build green stores, which range from the HE.1 to HE.5 prototype.

In March, the corporation introduced its most energy-efficient U.S. store in Las Vegas - dubbed the HE.5 prototype - which is expected to use up to 45 percent less energy than the baseline supercenter.

Wal-Mart has, to date, no supercenters (which offer a grocery store within a Wal-Mart) in the state of Hawaii.

The HE.2 prototype - one of which just opened last month in Garland, Texas, is a high-efficiency Wal-Mart supercenter that supposedly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and use by 25 percent compared to a typical supercenter.

Among the new technologies it uses are: integrated heating, cooling and refrigeration systems, low-flow bathroom faucets, daylight harvesting systems, and lighting innovations which includes LEDs (light-emitting diodes) in freezers.

The LEDS are used, for instance, at the Pearl City Wal-Mart store, which is also outfitted with skylights that are part of a daylight harvesting system.

During periods of higher natural daylight, the system dims and turns off store lights to reduce energy use.

Rand Waddous, senior director of strategy and sustainability at Wal-Mart, says the green-building efforts began in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

Waddous said: "We had a wake-up call. We realized it wasn't our job to deliver great, quality products to the community, but to be a part of the global community, to be a part of the problems we face, in particular, the problems around sustainability."

Wal-Mart President and Chief Executive Lee Scott in 2005 delivered a speech titled "Twenty-First Century Leadership," laying out three sustainability goals: To be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; To create zero waste; To sell products that sustain our resources and the environment.

Scott said that many environmental sustainability efforts also meant cost savings for Wal-Mart, its suppliers and customers.

Among Wal-Mart's initiatives, said Waddous, was figuring out Wal-Mart's carbon footprint, which he declined to disclose other than that it's "huge."

According to Wal-Mart's sustainability progress report for 2006-2007, its global carbon emissions weighed in at about 20.4 million tons.

Wal-Mart recently has been ramping up its marketing efforts to reverse its negative image. The big-box store has gained notoriety through documentaries and numerous books criticizing the corporation's treatment of its workers.

A public upswelling against the big-box store even resulted in the launch of an anti-Wal-mart Web site, walmartwatch.com.

Walmartwatch's board of directors includes Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.

Waddous makes no pretense about Wal-Mart's enormous carbon footprint in the globe.

"Honestly, we know we're not a green company," he said.

What's important, he said, is that Wal-Mart is making an effort to reduce its carbon footprint - whether through more sustainable building products like recycled construction materials, flyash instead of concrete, LEDs, skylights and solar systems, as well as recycling cardboard, plastic and electronics.

Wal-Mart is also working with suppliers to make energy-efficient products - in electronics, for example. Over the next five years, Wal-Mart's goal is to reduce overall packaging by 5 percent.

"We're on sort of a journey that gets us on the point where one day, we hope we can really become a sustainable company," he said. "That's a very lofty goal."