Sustainability and the supply-chain

Whether you love or loathe Wal-Mart, there’s no denying the company has embraced business practices to make it one of the most powerful and influential corporations of our time.

Among those practices, the company is vigorously embracing sustainability, as outlined by Hu Yoshida, CTO of Hitachi Data Systems, in his blog. Yoshida recently attended the Wal-Mart Living Better Sustainability Summit. There, Yoshida writes, “sustainability was described by Wal-Mart to mean eliminating waste, improving quality, and driving innovation. Sustainability was presented as being about real business value and not about creating a PR image. This summit was a sincere effort to enlist the support of their suppliers.”

As I wrote about not long ago, Wal-Mart is vigorously encouraging its suppliers to embrace leaner, more environmentally friendly practices. The company is relying heavily on its suppliers to embrace sustainability, Yoshida writes, to achieve its “environmental goals for 100 percent renewable energy, zero waste, and sustainable products. … Even if they were able to achieve their targets it would only amount to addressing 8 percent of their goals. The other 92 percent has to be addressed by Wal-Mart working with their suppliers.”

While I was aware that the supply chain played an important role in an organization’s sustainable endeavors, those figures Yoshida cites really drive home just how critical that role is. Companies that are serious about becoming leaner and greener not only have to make changes internally; they’ll clearly have to rethink how they interact with their trade partners.