Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Wal-Mart kept NGO partnerships on the DL
When Wal-Mart decided it needed an environmental strategy, it asked for help from some of its biggest critics.
The only thing is, the non-governmental organizations it looked to for advice on building a sustainable business didn’t want to ruin their green cred — or jeopardize their relationships with their donors — by admitting that they were working with Wal-Mart.
“We had to guarantee them that we would not ever tell anybody that they were there,” Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said during an appearance at the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics conference in Goleta, California.
Since then, Scott said NGOs have been critical to helping the company understand issues such as sustainable fisheries and carbon dioxide emissions as well as pushing it to go farther in thinking green.
