22 Jul 2011

Why is Michelle Obama’s food initiative promoting Walmart?

by | Date: 22 Jul 2011 | posted in: Retail | 6 Facebooktwitterredditmail

I winced yesterday when James Gavin, chair of the Partnership for a Healthier America, said he’d like to see Walmart double its U.S. store count. He was speaking at Michelle Obama’s event announcing that several retailers will open stores in “food deserts.” It was a sort of half-jokey remark, but, still, in a conversation about food in America, the suggestion that Walmart should have an even bigger role in our food system is pretty disturbing. This is a company that already captures 25 percent of grocery sales nationally and more than 50 percent in some metro areas.… Read More
28 Mar 2007

Keep Your Eyes on the Size: The impossibility of a green Wal-Mart

by | Date: 28 Mar 2007 | posted in: Retail | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Walmart’s sustainability campaign cannot be dismissed as greenwashing. It’s actually far more dangerous than that. Wal-Mart’s initiatives have just enough meat to have distracted much of the environmental movement, along with most journalists and many ordinary people, from the fundamental fact that, as a system of distributing goods to people, big-box retailing is as intrinsically unsustainable as clear-cut logging is as a method of harvesting trees.… Read More
21 Jul 2005

Media Release: Response to Wal-Mart’s New “Green” Store in McKinney, Texas

by | Date: 21 Jul 2005 | posted in: Press Release, Retail | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

MINNEAPOLIS (July 20, 2005)—While the features incorporated into Wal-Mart’s new "green" store in McKinney, Texas, create very modest improvements in energy consumption and stormwater runoff, they do not change Wal-Mart’s basic business model, which is extremely polluting. … Read More

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