Walmart's Sustainability Strategy (B): 2010 Update

In 2007, Walmart launched a new business strategy designed to meet three sweeping and aggressive environmental goals set by CEO Lee Scott: (1) to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; (2) to create zero waste; and (3) to sell products that sustain people and the environment. The initiation of this new approach to managing the company’s extended supply chain is the subject of OIT-71A. In OIT-71B, the authors provide an update on Walmart’s sustainability strategy, three years after the original case was written. In addition to outlining the progress made in the three sustainable value networks profiled in the A case (textiles, seafood, and electronics), the B case also describes how the company is strengthening, modifying, or abandoning the new supply chain management practices it adopted in 2007. It also touches on some of the company’s new sustainability initiatives, including Walmart’s 2010 GHG goal, the globalization of the network approach, and new measurement programs (e.g., GreenWERCS and the sustainability consortium).