Walmart Canada’s Sustainability Path

Branding for Good talked with Andrew Telfer, Manager of Sustainability at Walmart Canada, to discuss his company’s sustainability initiatives.

With more than 85,000 associates and 330 stores, Walmart Canada is still less than 10% the size of its southern neighbour. Yet its Core Sustainability Goals mirror those of the global Walmart brand. That is, they aim to:

• be supplied 100 per cent by renewable energy
• create zero waste
• sell products that sustain people and the environment

Environmental
Due to their sheer size, Walmart Canada can boast of being one of the country’s largest commercial purchasers of green power. They use geothermal and hydrogen fuel cells technology in their energy mix, along with solar and wind power. New stores are now 30% more energy-efficient than older stores, a trend that led Walmart Canada to build their first sustainable distribution center.

Telfer says that Walmart Canada encourages their suppliers to optimize packaging whenever possible, adding that many suppliers find it in their own best interest to do so as they see value in decreasing waste and saving costs at the same time. In other cases, Walmart insists that certain types of plastic, such as PVC, be replaced with PET.Their goal is to create closed loops where suppliers use the same PET plastic over and over again.

“If we can keep the clear plastic packaging stream to be consistent,” says Telfer, “then we can increase recycling rates and increase the use of recycled PET. This, in turn, will decrease the amount of virgin materials used for PET creation.”

People
Walmart Canada’s My Sustainability Plan focuses attention on the company’s internal associates – “employee green engagement” – by providing them with incentives and tools to passionately seek and track tangible change.

“It’s easier to reach our corporate (sustainability) goals if our staff are inherently green minded,” says Telfer. “If they are more aware about green efficiency at home then it becomes second nature for them to be “green” at work, which helps us.”

Walmart Canada has gone one step further with their Walmart Green Student Challenge, a $30,000 award for students judged to have the next big sustainable idea. Spearheaded by Walmart Canada’s former CEO, David Cheesewright, the program was designed to engage the business leaders of tomorrow.

The winning team this year, from University of Waterloo, came up with the idea of an integrated energy hub for retail distribution centres. The hub would integrate solar rooftop panels, be connected to the smart electricity grid to provide grid balancing and auxiliary services and produce net economic benefits estimated at $1.35 million per year over 20 years.¹

Ethical Sourcing
On the supply side, Walmart Canada strives to work with suppliers that can deliver products within the framework of the global retailer’s sustainable objectives. Shelley Broader, President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart Canada Corp, is proud of this approach.

“Our efforts are aligned with the global Walmart Energy Efficiency Program, whose goal is for the top 200 factories in China to achieve 20 per cent greater energy efficiency by 2012.”²

As of January 2011, 84 supplier factories affiliated with Walmart Canada had met that program’s goals, two years ahead of schedule.

Return on Investment
Walmart Canada is first and foremost a for-profit company. So money saved through CSR activities helps sustain the company as much as the communities in which it operates.

“The whole reason why Walmart is doing sustainability is to realize return on investment,” says Telfer, adding that waste-stream diversion strategies over the next five years could save Walmart Canada upwards of $140 million.

It’s straightforward, he states, to calculate tangible returns like waste diversion. But it’s more challenging to quantify human sustainable efforts at the store level across Canada. They haven’t succeeded yet, but stay tuned.

Walmart will be at Sustainable Brands ’12 Conference where Rahul Raj, Director of Sustainability, Walmart will be speaking about Walmart’s US Sustainability platform. The SB’12 conference runs from June 4 – 7 in San Diego, California and brings together over 1,000 Sustainability, Brand and Innovation Leaders to share insights and strategies for better understanding the shift in consumer demand and behavior that is driving the need for radical innovation.