Asian Journal of Management Cases
http://ajc.sagepub.com
Wal-Mart’s Environmental Strategy
R. Nandagopal and Ajith Sankar R.N.
Asian Journal of Management Cases 2009; 6; 119
DOI: 10.1177/097282010900600204
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ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT CASES, 6(2), 2009: 119–133
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LOS ANGELES/LONDON/NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON DC
DOI: 10.1177/097282010900600204
WAL-MART’S ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGY
R. Nandagopal
Ajith Sankar R.N.
The case looks into the evolution of environmental strategy at Wal-Mart. From being
an organization that was the target of extensive public criticism due to a number of
its corporate policies, Wal-Mart emerged as one of the most talked about green organizations of the world. The case tries to explain the green initiatives undertaken by the
company that resulted in the company gaining acclaim. The case explains the impact
of Wal-Mart’s green strategy and also factors like leadership and strategy alignment
that contributed to its success.
Keywords: Green strategy, environmental strategy, corporate strategy, business
strategy, cost strategy, environment, green washing, waste, supply chain management,
value networks, sustainable development, sustainability.
I firmly believe that a company that cheats on overtime and on the age of its labour, that
dumps its scraps and chemicals in our rivers, that does not pay its taxes or honour its
contracts—will ultimately cheat on the quality of its products. And cheating on the quality
of products is the same as cheating on customers. We will not tolerate that at Wal-Mart.1
Lee Scott, Former President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), the leading company in the Fortune 500 list for 20082
operated 4,253 retail units in the United States and 3,355 retails units internationally.3
The company, known for its low cost retailing strategies, operated in fourteen countries
1
Announced at the Global Responsible Sourcing Initiative Summit at Beijing, China, 22 October 2008.
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500
U.S. public corporations as measured by their gross revenue.
3
As of December 2008.
2
This case was written by Dr Nandagopal, Director, PSG Institute of Management, India and Ajith
Sankar R.N., Lecturer, PSG Institute of Management, India.
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ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT CASES, 6(2), 2009: 119–133
and served more than 100 million customers. Globally, the company was also one of the
largest private employers. A megalith corporation like WMT created substantially large
ecological footprints. Taking into consideration the influence WMT wielded and also the
scale of its operations, WMT’s decision to go green, as announced by Lee Scott (Scott), Former Chief Executive, WMT was initially met with skepticism from the public. However,
its persistence on initiating and implementing ecologically friendly business processes
seemed to have paid off. The company made cost savings through such initiatives and
was projected as one of the leading green companies by the media. WMT also found that
doing the right thing resulted in improved employee morale.
While cost savings had been projected as the carrot for going green, observers questioned,
to what extent this theme could be used as sales pitch for embracing green initiatives.
Americus Reed, Marketing Professor at the Wharton School of Business said, ‘The barrier
to proliferation of socially responsible policies is that it’s difficult to show social goodwill
on the balance sheet. There is no column or item to say, “Here it is, here are the savings
in dollars”. That’s the conundrum’.
COMPANY HISTORY
Sam Walton (Walton) started WMT in 1962 by opening the first store in Rogers, Arkansas,
USA. The company went public in 1972 and with the infusion of funds, it grew to 276 stores
by the end of the 1970s. In 1980, the sales revenue touched USD one billion. Exhibit 1
illustrates the operating results for WMT in recent years.
Walton was focused on offering the lowest possible prices to his customers. He said,
‘If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone… We’ll give the world an
opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life’.4 This statement was considered to be Wal-Mart’s mission. In alignment with this philosophy, the company had been
using the tagline ‘Always low prices’. In September 2007, WMT changed its tagline to ‘Save
Money, Live Better’. The new mission of the organization ‘is to help people save money so
they can live better’. The culture of WMT was threaded to its three basic beliefs—‘Respect
for the individual’, ‘Service to our customers’ and ‘Striving for excellence’. The values that
the company adhered to (see Exhibit 2), were built on these belief systems.
4
See http://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/8123.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
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BACKGROUND
WMT never had a leadership position when it came to environmental initiatives. Instead,
the company was encouraging conspicuous consumption, producing massive quantities
of packaging waste, a 10,000 mile supply chain that was inefficient and was creating
water pollution due to runoffs from new construction. This was in a scenario when public
awareness about the destruction caused to the planet by human intervention was on an
increase (Refer to Exhibit 3 to see the growing ecological footprint of humanity through
the years and the projected footprint for the next forty years). WMT had also met with
sharp criticism about the way it related to the society. The release of the documentary
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,5 a series of lawsuits, union campaigns protesting
unfair worker treatment and community resentment against the opening of new stores
kept WMT in public focus. Eric Orts, Director, Professor Legal Studies at Wharton School
of Business6 said:
A lot of times, a big company gets seriously burned in its reputation, [which is] what
happened to Wal-Mart. Although that criticism was about employment issues, not the
environment, sometimes these things all go together and you get a bad reputation that
starts to hurt you.
Shortly following the Katrina disaster,7 Scott gave a speech in the month of October
that came to be known as 21st Century Leadership, where he laid out three goals for
WMT—‘To be supplied 100 per cent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell
products that sustain our resources and environment’.8 Scott said that WMT was looking
forward to becoming good steward when it came to environmental initiatives. In line
with these objectives, WMT came out with specifics like cutting greenhouse emissions by
20 per cent in the next seven years, improving the supply chain by spending US$ 500 million
a year to increase fuel efficiency by 25 per cent over three years; doubling the efficiency
of its trucks in the next 10 years; reduction in the energy usage at its stores by 30 per cent
5
This documentary film, released in November 2005, presents an unfavourable picture of Wal-Mart’s
business practices.
6
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/mobile/article.cfm?articleid=1653 (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
7
Hurricane Katrina, which occurred in the last week of August 2005, was the costliest and one of the five
deadliest hurricanes in the history of United States. Wal-Mart believes that Hurricane Katrina was the turning
point for its sustainability activities.
8
Sustainability Fact Sheet, http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/FactSheets/ (Accessed on 4 November
2009).
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and a 25 per cent reduction in solid waste produced by US stores in the next three years.
WMT also spoke about selling organic food that would be affordable to the masses. Other
initiatives announced by WMT included eliminating PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) packaging
from private label brands, supporting and pursuing regulatory and policy changes that
incentivized energy efficiency and renewable energy.
However, the company also received supporters for its objectives. In July 2006, Al Gore,
attended the environmental strategy meeting of an 800 member group comprising WMT
employees, suppliers and partners. He likened the green campaign to the Allies’ righteous
struggle during World War II. This meeting was also attended by Evangelical Environment Network Executive Director Rev. Jim Ball. Following WMT’s demand (along with
similar demands made by General Electrics, Shell, Exelon, Duke Energy) for a mandatory carbon cap programme from the US government, Grist Magazine, one of the popular
online environmental magazines, responded to this action stating ‘The heart of this
monolithic retail Grinch grew three sizes that day—or so it seemed to many environmental
Who’s’.9
The company was moving ahead with its environmental initiatives. On 25 September
2008, at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, WMT pledged to reduce its plastic
shopping bag waste by 33 per cent per store by 2013—a 25 per cent reduction from the
stores based in US and a 50 per cent reduction from the stores based in international
locations. For its Chinese operations, the company planned to launch a new store prototype
by 2010 (See Exhibit 4 for a screen shot from the www.walmart.com/green web page),
which would reduce energy consumption by 40 per cent. There were plans for a 30 per
cent reduction in energy consumption for the existing stores. In the next two years, the
company also aimed for a 50 per cent reduction in its water consumption. On 26 January
2009, the company said that it will reduce phosphates10 in laundry and dish detergents
by 70 per cent in the Americas region by 2011. Wal-Mart also announced plans to reduce
packaging in the Americas region by 5 per cent by the end of 2013.
STRATEGY AND LEARNING
WMT was known for its low cost pricing strategy. One of the ways in which it tried to
ensure low prices was through cost-effective purchases. ‘In 2004, Wal-Mart’s supply chain
pulled in US$ 18 billion worth of goods from 5,000 Chinese suppliers. If Wal-Mart were
an individual economy, it would rank as China’s eighth-biggest trading partner, ahead of
9
10
http://www.grist.org/article/griscom-little3 (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
A water pollutant.
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Russia, Australia and Canada’, said Thomas L Friedman in the book The World Is Flat: A
Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. The supply chain management practices of WMT
helped it to become one of the leading low cost retailers in the world.
Research and internal assessment revealed to the top management at WMT that
people shopping at the retail store were looking for deals, not necessarily cheap products. The company came to the conclusion that its 200 million customers belonged to
three groups—people who sought low prices because they could not afford products/
services of higher cost; people with low incomes but obsessed with brand names like
KitchenAid; and wealthier shoppers who were looking for deals. Though the company, in
early 2006, tried a repositioning exercise through ‘Look Beyond the Basics’, the endeavour
did not produce the expected results. Then WMT took the middle path of ‘Save Money,
Live Better’.
While ‘Save Money’ was always part of the WMT culture, ‘Live Better’ brought in an emotional component. The change in the mission statement and its environmental initiatives
went together. The company wanted to ensure that customers could have a guilt-free shopping experience. The green initiatives of WMT made customers feel better about shopping
there. These initiatives helped the company to strengthen its value systems.
WMT had been on a continuous learning path during the formulation and implementation
of its environmental strategy. It was entering into an unchartered territory. However,
the company embraced uncertainty and made progress. In October 2006, Wal-Mart and
Sam’s Club decided to sell 100 million compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs by the end
of 2007. In a speech to the National Retail Federation in January 2008,11 Leslie Dach, Vice
President, Corporate Affairs and Government Relations said:
Like our initial environmental goals, at first, we weren’t sure how we were going to
achieve this—we were entering a world of the unknown. But we met our goal three
months ahead of schedule…and sold nearly 137 million CFLs. We did it by changing our
marketing approach and educating consumers, and in many cases lowering prices.
WMT created thirteen environmentally sustainable value networks that comprised
environmental NGOs, suppliers, government officials and scholars. This structure
brought immense creativity to WMT’s environmental initiatives and explored options
like pursuing regulatory change and raising public awareness to address systemic barriers
11
http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/7870.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
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to sustainability. ‘We owe a great deal of credit for our progress to the women and men
serving in these networks’, said Dach.12
One of the important aspects of the company’s environmental strategy was to follow
an organization-wide approach in implementing environmental initiatives, be it some
important decisions relating to one of the largest solar panels purchased by the company
or the removal of a light bulb. One of the stories shared by Dach13 was the suggestion made
by Darrell Meyers, a WMT associate, who pointed out that energy was being wasted by the
unnecessary use of light bulbs in vending machines in the break rooms. This resulted in
savings of more than $1 million once these bulbs were removed. This saved money was
channeled to ‘Everyday Low Prices’14 offered by WMT. This bottom-up approach made
the management realize that sustainability was one of the most popular discussion topics
among the WMT associates and their families.15 ‘Sustainability is not a separate initiative
at Wal-Mart, as it is at many other firms. Sustainability is being integrated into all parts
of the business’,16 said Frank Dixon (Dixon), former Managing Director of Research for
Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, a leading sustainability research firm.
MEETING COMMITMENTS
WMT had met with success in meeting some of its commitments. The company had
become the leading seller of organic milk and the leading buyer of organic cotton. In
May 2008, the company met the goal of transitioning its entire liquid laundry detergent
category in the US to the concentrated segment, thereby meeting the pledge made at
the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative Meeting. It was assessed that this commitment, within
three years, would save 95 million pounds of plastic resin, more than 400 million gallons
of water and more than 125 million pounds of cardboard. On 20 November 2008, the
company announced a wind energy purchase from Duke Energy Wind Farm, which was
expected to supply 15 per cent of WMT’s total load in its 360 stores and other facilities in
Texas. In January 2008, the company opened the second generation of High-Efficiency
Stores (HE2) which used 25 percent less energy than the traditional Wal-Mart Supercentre.
12
http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/7870.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/7870.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
14
As part of Everyday low prices, companies eliminate periodic promotional discounts to offer prices that
are consistently lesser than customary prices.
15
http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/7870.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
16
The largest corporate sustainability research firm in the world.
13
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On 2 February 2009, WMT announced that by using innovative technologies, better
delivery routes and efficient loading of its trailers, more than a 25 per cent efficiency increase within its private fleet had been achieved between 2005 and 2008. This helped the
company to surpass one of its sustainability goals, as announced by Scott in 2005.
In line with its strategy of providing goods and services at low cost, the company tried to
bring green products to the mainstream. In April 2008, WMT launched the ‘Earth Month’
campaign where eco-friendly items were promoted at competitive prices. ‘Wal-Mart is
uniquely positioned to make sustainable choices a real option for hundreds of millions of
Americans, not just the few who until now could afford to choose them’, said Kistler.17
GREENING THE SUPPLY CHAIN
WMT had been spending substantial amount of energy in greening its supply chain, a
strategic imperative for the company. They outlined the goals and commitments that
they expected from their suppliers. Michael T. Duke (Duke), Vice-Chairman, International
Division, WMT (In February 2009, Duke became the President and Chief Executive
Officer, WMT) said:
Achieving the goals that we lay out today is going to require a common commitment.
It’s going to take even stronger and deeper relationships. And it is going to take all of
us working together.… We are expecting more of ourselves at Wal-Mart, and we will
also expect more of our suppliers.18
WMT had been asking miners to adopt stringent social and environmental standards.
Pam Mortensen, chief buyer for the jewelery department at WMT commented that by
2010, 10 per cent of the gold, silver and diamonds sourced by the company will be responsibly produced.
By bringing together the top executives from its suppliers to a summit, WMT began
asking the right questions. They found that basic questions like, why the product had
been packaged in a certain way forced the suppliers to reassess their operations in new
ways. In 2006, WMT developed a packaging scorecard for its US operations. By this, the
company aimed at reducing packaging through its supply chain by 5 per cent by 2013.
17
‘Wal-Mart Goes Green with Earth Month Campaign’, Prism Insight, 4 April 2008.
Press Release, ‘Wal-Mart Announces Global Responsible Sourcing Initiative at China Summit’, 22 October
2008.
18
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The scorecard indicated the product packaging standards of suppliers based on metrics like
greenhouse gas emissions, use of renewable energy during the production of packaging
materials, space utilization, emissions related to the transportation of packaging materials
and product to package ratio. Suppliers received a score in each category and viewed
their ratings compared to their competitors in each product category. This scorecard, in
addition to helping the suppliers assess their contribution in helping WMT achieve its
green goals, also helped buyers to make informed purchasing decisions.
WMT engaged its suppliers with new agreements that required them to certify compliance with domestic laws and regulations related to environmental and social standards.
The company expected to do this in a phased manner, starting with suppliers from China
and then expanding this to all of its suppliers by 2011. By 2012, WMT expected its suppliers
to procure 95 per cent of their production resources from institutions that followed the
highest environmental and social practices.
In mid-July 2008, WMT joined the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN). Through
this, the company aimed to phase out illegal and unwanted wood sources from its supply
chain. ‘By joining the GFTN we can further this goal by providing our customers with
a reliable supply of wood products that come from responsibly managed forests’, said
Matt Kistler, Senior Vice President Sustainability, WMT.19 WMT sourced its furniture from
Indonesia, China and Brazil. All of these regions were known for their illegal logging and
trade. Observers pointed out that the US market had an influential role to play in protecting forests because the country was the largest global consumer of industrial timber,
pulp and paper. WMT expected that by mid-2009, it would be able to assess where all its
wood furniture was coming from. According to WMT, the company would, within five
years, eliminate products that come from illegal and unknown sources. The organization
would stop selling wood related products that were coming from endangered forests. In
early 2008, the company committed that, within four years, it will purchase only Marine
Stewardship Council (MSC) certified seafood sold in the US.
In September 2007, WMT partnered with the Carbon Disclosure Project to initiate a
pilot project that looked into the amount of energy consumed through the supply chain
while creating seven products (DVD’s, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, vacuum cleaners and
soda). This partnership was intended to encourage suppliers to reduce their greenhouse
emissions.
19
http://walmartstores.com/Investors/News/8438.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
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POLLUTION = WASTE = COST
The company was looking for every opportunity to incorporate sustainability into all
aspects of its business. In addition to being good for the environment, these initiatives
saved money. By reducing the packaging size of the company’s toy brand, Kid Connection,
WMT saved US$ 2.4 million annually in transportation and 3,800 trees.
WMT believed that its pledge to reduce one-third of the annual shopping bag waste would
eliminate plastic waste equivalent to 9 billion plastic bags per year—more than 135 million
pounds of plastic waste. ‘By pledging to cut its bag waste by one-third by 2013, Wal-Mart
is taking a clear step forward in reducing global waste’,20 said Gwen Ruta, Vice President
Corporate Partnerships, Environmental Defense Fund.21 The plastic reduction effort was
expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 290,000 metric tons per year and reduce
the energy consumption of 678,000 barrels of oil. WMT also made economic gains from
this initiative. On 12 May 2008 WMT Canada announced that it would eliminate plastic
packaging in the energy saving light bulb category. The change to cardboard packaging
was expected to save approximately 150,000 pounds of plastic waste every year.
ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
Observers credit the rapid progress made by WMT in achieving its green goals to the
company’s excellence in strategy execution and the commitment provided by the top
management. ‘Lee Scott has made it clear that working on sustainability projects can
accelerate careers within Wal-Mart. Compensation schemes are being adjusted to provide
substantial incentives for improving sustainability performance’, says Dixon.
Was it the lure of savings that accelerated the environmental initiatives at WMT? Scott
said that it was a combination of personal and business imperatives that generated an
interest in sustainability factors. ‘On a personal level, as you become a grandparent—
I have a granddaughter—you just also become more thoughtful about what the world that
she inherits looks like’, said Scott.22
The size of WMT enabled the creation of technologies that did not have established
markets. Scott took personal interest in communicating with his peers,
20
Wal-Mart Sets Goal to Reduce its Global Plastic Shopping Bag Waste by One-Third, Press Release from WalMart, 25 September 2008.
21
Environmental Defense Fund, which partnered with Wal-Mart in evolving its plastic bag reduction strategy,
is a US based non profit environmental advocacy group.
22
Amanda Griscom Little, Don’t Discount Him, http://www.grist.org/article/griscom-little3, 12 April 2006
(Accessed on 4 November 2009).
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So I’m always asking, how do I work with people, whether it be Jeff Immelt at General
Electric or John Browne at BP, to use our scale to help propel an industry so that the
production of that tech[nology] or product is now affordable for other people? I ask,
what happens to the solar panel market if Wal-Mart makes a large commitment to
solar panels?23 What happens to the cost of compact fluorescent light bulbs or green
building materials?24
In the January 2008 annual kick off meeting speech to more than 7,000 managers, Lee
Scott prodded, ‘What if we extended our mission of saving people money so they can
live better—to saving people money on energy?’25 During this speech, Scott announced
a company wide goal to make the most energy-intensive products sold in WMT stores
25 per cent more energy efficient. ‘Flat screen TVs will be 30 per cent more efficient by
2010’, said Hank Mullany, Head of the Eastern Division.26
When Duke took over the Chief Executive position, he added momentum to the sustainability initiatives, despite the downturn in the economy.
These difficult economic times have led to an obvious question that a number of people
have asked me: ‘Can Wal-Mart afford to continue to be so aggressive in sustainability?’
My response has been very clear and direct: ‘We can’t afford not to. We need to accelerate and broaden our efforts’, [s]aid Duke in the 2009 Global Sustainability Report
of WMT.
CHALLENGING THE BELIEF
Andy Ruben (Ruben), Vice President Corporate Strategy and Sustainability, WMT. said:
You know, the biggest challenge that we’ve seen all the way through it has been the
mind-set. And what I’m saying is that many of the opportunities that we’re talking
23
In May 2007, Wal-Mart announced one of the world’s largest solar power purchases that will energize
Wal-Mart’s twenty-two facilities in California and Hawaii.
24
Amanda Griscom Little, Don’t Discount Him, http://www.grist.org/article/griscom-little3, 12 April 2006
(Accessed on 4 November 2009).
25
Press Release, ‘Wal-Mart Expands Leadership On Energy Efficiency, Ethical Sourcing And Health Care’,
23 January 2008.
26
Becky Batcha, ‘Wal-Mart’s boss in the Northeast is pushing the company’s strategy to cut costs by going
green’, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 26 June 2008.
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about have existed for some time. It’s just the ability to see them, and it’s looking at
things in a different way. And the way we’re approaching this is not a separate part of
the organization that works on environment; we see it as consistent with our business
and a part of the business.27
In a response provided during an interview, Ruben had this to say about the criticism
the company had been facing from some quarters:
And what we have found is there are a lot of our critics out there who simply want WalMart to be a better company. It’s not that they are interested in not having Wal-Mart.
And that type of criticism’s actually very productive, and we’ve gotten a lot of help
from those people over the past year in terms of understanding, you know, the things
they know a lot more about than we do. And with working with them we found great
innovative solutions to things that we hadn’t uncovered before.28
The company was working with some of its ardent critics. Dach said:
For Wal-Mart, it has been very hard to get some groups and individuals to sit down and
talk with us. And some still won’t, but its fewer everyday and now some even seek us
out. It’s amazing what happens when you say you want to listen and learn and have
a conversation. You start finding common ground, and people that never would have
worked with you before, now become partners.29
Such an endeavour won the company applauds. Consultants like Dixon reported that
WMT may be pioneering the first sustainability strategy that actually had the potential
to achieve sustainability. According to Ruben, WMT had set inspirational green goals to
ensure that people get out of their silos and use imagination and innovation required
to meet those goals.30 Some observers believed that the company could also gain some
intangible benefits like, having a favourable public perception when it came to opening
new stores in markets where WMT had not welcomed earlier.
27
“Wal-mart to Reduce Its Environmental Footprint”, http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programmeID=
05-P13-00043feature 1, 25 October 2008 (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
28
“Wal-mart to Reduce Its Environmental Footprint”, http://www.loe.org/shows/shows.htm?programmeID=
05-P13-00043feature 1, 25 October 2008 (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
29
http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/7870.aspx (Accessed on 4 November 2009).
30
http://www.sustainableisgood.com/blog/2007/04/is_walmart_sust.html (Accessed on 4 November
2009).
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‘Wal-Mart Makes Major Commitment to Renewable Wind Power’, http://walmartstores.com/
FactsNews/NewsRoom/8806.aspx, As accessed on 9 December 2008.
130 R. NANDAGOPAL AND AJITH SANKAR R.N.
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Downloaded from http://ajc.sagepub.com at Alliant International University on March 10, 2010
Source: 10-K Filing of Wal-Mart Inc.
$3.16
3.13
0.88
Per share of common stock:
Income from continuing operations, diluted
Net income, diluted
Dividends
$264,152
64,001
$286,515
70,288
$2.92
2.71
0.67
1,529
33.6%
$12,178
11,284
$344,992
11.7%
2%
$374,526
8.6%
2%
1,798
34.2%
$12,884
12,731
2007
2008
Net sales
Net sales increase
Comparable store sales increase in the
United States
Cost of sales
Operating, selling, general and administrative
expenses
Interest expense, net
Effective tax rate
Income from continuing operations
Net income
Fiscal Year Ended 31 January (Dollar Amounts
in Millions) Operating Results
Exhibit 1
Financials for Wal-Mart between 2005 and 2008
$2.72
2.68
0.60
1,178
33.1%
$11,408
11,231
$237,649
55,739
$308,945
9.8%
3%
2006
$2.46
2.41
0.52
980
34.2%
$10,482
10,267
$216,832
50,178
$281,488
11.4%
3%
2005
ASIAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT CASES, 6(2), 2009: 119–133
Exhibit 2
Wal-Mart Values Listed under its Core Beliefs
Respect for the Individual
Service to Our Customers
Striving for Excellence
Servant Leadership
Open Door
Accountability
Open Communications
People Development
Trust
Humility
Caring
Teamwork
Empowerment
Confidentiality
Listening
Diversity
Friendly Atmosphere
Pleasant Shopping Experience
Every Day Low Prices
Aggressive Hospitality
Sundown Rule
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Sense of Urgency
The 10-foot Rule
Community Minded
Quality Always!
Continuous Improvement
Dissatisfaction with the Status Quo
Results Oriented
Integrity Always!
Competitive Spirit
Sustainability
Failure Allowance
Risk-taking Encouraged
Expense Control
Change Agents
Compliance with the Laws
Source: http://walmartstores.com/AboutUs/321.aspx
Exhibit 3
Ecological Footprint through the Years
Source: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/world_footprint/
132 R. NANDAGOPAL AND AJITH SANKAR R.N.
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Exhibit 4
Screen Shot from the www.walmart.com/green Webpage
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