Wal-Mart has announced plans to “measure and evaluate” its 60,000 worldwide suppliers on their ability to develop environmentally sustainable packaging.
In the process it believes there should be scope for a 5% packaging reduction across 10% of the global packaging industry.
The retailer, which has operated a “Sustainable Packaging Value Network” in partnership with 200 “global packaging industry leaders” for the past 18 months, made the announcement at the Clinton Global Initiative event in New York in late September. By benchmarking its suppliers' ability to develop effective packaging that simultaneously “conserves natural resources” it believes it can cut by 5% its own packaging consumption between now and 2013. Given its huge supplier base the upshot could, it reckons, be packaging savings of up to US$11bn globally, with Wal-Mart itself set to save US$3.4bn.
On November 1 the company (which has operations in the US, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Germany, Guetamala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the UK) will kick-start the process by introducing a packaging scorecard to over 2,000 private label suppliers, “a tool that will allow our buyers to have all the information about packaging alternatives or more sustainable packaging materials in one place, allowing them to make better purchasing decisions”.
On February 1 it will make the scorecard and accompanying “tools and processes” available to all its suppliers, who will “learn and share results” over the following year. Then, in early 2008, it will “measure and recognise” its entire worldwide supply base “for using less packaging, utilising more effective materials and sourcing these more efficiently”.
Wal-Mart says its packaging vision “began to form” when it partnered with suppliers to improve packaging on its private label Kid Connection toy line last year. By reducing the packaging on less than 300 toys it apparently saved 3,425 tons of corrugated, 1,358 barrels of oil, 5,190 trees, 727 shipping containers and US$3.5m in transport costs in just one year.
Ceo H Lee Scott says: “When you bring the capabilities of the entire packaging supply chain together, the ability to make a difference really pops. Instead of looking at what Wal-Mart can do alone, we have the opportunity to inspire thousands of companies and millions of customers as well.”
Media relations director Dave Tovar adds: “Alongside the kudos of being recognised as a supplier of environmentally-friendly packaging to Wal-Mart, converters will, through this ground-breaking initiative, potentially significantly also reduce their own costs and increase their opportunities of winning more Wal-Mart business in future.”
