Elephant leading the eco-charge
April 15, 2008

LOS ANGELES—There were about 150 people and one giant elephant in the room at the well-attended and educational Green Media Summit at the Luxe Hotel here last week.

It was clear that Wal-Mart, which sells about half of all DVDs in the U.S., had a huge influence on the development of the conference, in fact, on the development of the home entertainment industry’s eco-conscience, though not a single Wal-Mart exec was to be found at the event.

To be just, it was apparent at this meeting that the people in the room deeply care about doing the right thing for the environment and using their products to inspire consumers to adopt more eco-friendly practices. But there are many factors driving the move to sustainability. Among them are potential cost savings, brand building and the possibility of putting more product—or less—on the shelves of the world’s largest retailer—which has made a very big and very public commitment to sustainability, including a 5% reduction in packaging of the products it sells, by 2013.

Various consultants to Wal-Mart were represented, including Dan Esty, Hillhouse professor of environmental law and policy at Yale University, and Maria Harris of the Environmental Defense Fund, and it became clear through their remarks and those made by
others, that Wal-Mart can be both an enabler of, and in some regards an obstacle to, environmental progress.

“Wal-Mart and [CEO] Lee Scott have gotten companies all over the world up and going” in the development of sustainable business practices, Esty said, noting that “the expectations are high and they will get higher.” Make no mistake, however, he told assembled studios, replicators and packaging execs, “Wal-mart expects the supplier to bear the entire cost burden to do this.”

Wal-Mart’s effort to determine the carbon footprint of various products, including DVDs, spurred development of much of the greenhouse gas emissions data shared at the conference. And Harris of EDF showed the Wal-Mart “scorecard,” announced in 2006 and put in to use Feb. 1, that’s used to judge packaging efficiency and sustainability. All suppliers input packaging data on every SKU they aim to ship to Wal-Mart, and the chain’s buyers use that data as one factor in their purchasing decisions, fostering competition among suppliers to come up with the most eco-friendly boxes.

Yet, I took from the day’s discussion that there is still room for Wal-Mart to step up, in the footing of development costs, more aggressive promotion of eco-friendly product and more flexibility in its supply chain practices.

At the end of the day, there were a lot more questions than answers regarding the greening of home entertainment, but together, studios, replicators, packagers and others are moving in the right direction—at least as fast as you can travel on the back of an elephant.

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