On February 2015, Walmart launched its Sustainability Leaders Shop, a virtual shopping site where consumers are able to identify sustainable products and producers by a badge that reads “Made by a Sustainable Leader.” It is for the first time, a major retailer is giving prominent shelf space – albeit virtual – to companies operating in a better way. [3]

It is a customer-facing iteration of Walmart’s Sustainability Index, launched in 2009 in collaboration with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC). [4] For long, Walmart’s Sustainability Index had been a tool only for Walmart and its suppliers. And now, as part of the Sustainable Leaders Shop, the insights are available to the consumers. [4]

The products with a Sustainability Leaders badge shows that their supplier ranked as the top among other suppliers in that same category and it is based on the responses to the category survey created by TSC. If there are many leading manufacturers within that category, products with over 80 percent score on the survey will all be qualified.

The badge is not specific to the individual product’s social and environmental impact that being best-in-class not necessarily mean being sustainable. [3] However, as Unilever’s VP of Sustainable Living, Jonathan Atwood asserts, “The launch of the Walmart Sustainability Leaders Store is a significant moment for the industry and shoppers. It’s a major signal that embedding sustainability into your business can drive growth and help people make more sustainable choices without making trade-offs between quality, accessibility, and affordability.” [3] It’s interesting to see as years of surveys indicated that a large portion of consumers will seek out more environmentally friendly and socially aware products, if all else is equal. [3]

Walmart’s Sustainability Leaders Shop would show a real indication of consumer behaviours on sustainable products. If it works out, we will be able to see them in physical stores as the last two specialty stores of “made in the USA” and “women owned”, which both started online and moved into the real world. [3]

References:

[1] http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/environmental-sustainability/sustainability-leaders/introducing-the-walmart-sustainability-leaders-shop

[2] http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/environmental-sustainability/sustainability-leaders/sustainability-leaders-frequently-asked-questions

[3] https://hbr.org/2015/02/can-walmart-get-us-to-buy-sustainable-products

[4] http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/02/25/walmart-launches-sustainable-products-shop/

[5] http://www.triplepundit.com/2015/02/walmart-announces-virtual-sustainability-shop/