Featured
Article
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Stacy Mitchell
|
| Updated on
Feb 17, 2016
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/with-269-stores-closing-is-this-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-walmart/
All great retail empires eventually fall. A&P did. So did Montgomery Ward. But Walmart’s recent announcement that it would close 269 stores may not be an initial stumble on a path toward demise so much as a move to abandon communities that it has decided simply aren’t worth the trouble. We look at both the bad and the good fallout from Walmart’s pullback, and how its closures are best explained as a side effect of its main strategy for dominating the economy: overbuilding regions to the point of not just destroying competition but cannibalizing its own sales, while communities bear the consequences. Continue reading
Article
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Stacy Mitchell
|
| Updated on
Jun 3, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/walmart-shipping-climate-pollution/
No company moves as much stuff across the world’s oceans as Walmart does, and the climate consequences are immense. Ferrying all those cheap TVs, T-shirts, toasters, and toys from Asian factories to ports in the U.S. and elsewhere releases huge amounts of greenhouse pollutants into the atmosphere, including both carbon dioxide (CO2) and black carbon. We’ve compiled a few key data points on shipping’s climate impact and Walmart’s dominance in the movement of goods across the world’s oceans. Continue reading
Article
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Walter Wuthmann
|
| Updated on
Mar 23, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/walmart-quietly-massive-building-spree/
Having used its supercenters to capture one-quarter of U.S. grocery sales, Walmart is building a new wave of smaller stores that are poised to clean up the market share its supercenters don’t already control. Continue reading
Article, Resource
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Stacy Mitchell
|
| Updated on
Mar 23, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/alarming-pace-walmarts-continued-growth/
Walmart continues to expand, and rapidly. The company is now embarking on its third historic wave of store construction, with plans to build 440 to 460 “Neighborhood Market” stores over a two year period, presumably with many hundreds more to follow. There is a critical debate to be had right now about whether a company that already captures one-quarter of U.S. grocery sales should be allowed to grow to control one-third, or even half, of our food supply. Continue reading
Article
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Stacy Mitchell
|
| Updated on
Mar 5, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/walmarts-misleading-green-product-label/
The Sustainability Leaders badge is straight out of Walmart’s 10-year-old greenwashing playbook. Once again, Walmart has engineered an appealing media story about itself as a green innovator that has little to do with reality. Continue reading
ILSR Press Room
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
ILSR Admin
|
| Updated on
Feb 24, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/statement-walmart-sustainability-progress/
Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), issued the following statement on Walmart’s sustainability progress. Continue reading
Featured
Article
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Stacy Mitchell
|
| Updated on
Feb 5, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/labor-small-business-alliance-san-franciscos-landmark-retail-workers-bill-rights/
The political interests of labor and small business are often seen as pitted against each other — a perception corporate lobbyists work hard to perpetuate. But the two groups actually share broad common cause these days. Both stand to gain from building a more humane economy in which ruthless efficiency does not trump all else. Continue reading
Rule
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
ILSR Admin
|
| Updated on
Jan 23, 2015
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/rule/san-francisco-retail-workers-bill-rights/
Enacted at the end of 2014, the San Francisco Retail Workers Bill of Rights requires large retail and restaurant chains to give workers advance notice of their schedules and offer part-time employees access to more hours before hiring additional people. Continue reading
Article
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
Walter Wuthmann
|
| Updated on
Nov 21, 2014
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/walmart-huge-consumer-dirty-coal-energy/
Walmart has been strutting around decked out in solar panels lately. But look a little closer and this emperor’s outfit isn’t all that it appears to be. Only 3 percent of Walmart’s U.S. power is supplied by its renewable energy projects. Which begs the question: Where does the other 97 percent of Walmart’s power come from? Here at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we decided to take a look. And what we found is a big, filthy mountain of coal.
Continue reading
ILSR Press Room
filed under
Independent Business
| Written by
ILSR Admin
|
| Updated on
Nov 20, 2014
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at https://ilsr.org/walmarts-dirty-energy-secret-release/
As a growing group of environmental leaders call on Walmart to stop greenwashing and commit to real sustainability, a new study from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance finds that Walmart is one of the nation’s largest users of coal-fired electricity, and that its heavy reliance on dirty power pumps nearly 8 million metric tons of carbon pollution into the air each year. Continue reading
