On Tuesday I said I’d dedicate this week’s posts to small success stories. Well, it’s Friday and I want to talk about Wal-Mart–so sue me. Why the sudden defection to the 800 pound gorilla of retail? Frankly, because it would take hundreds, maybe thousands of little green success stories to rival the potential impact of Wal-Mart’s most recent green initiative.
On their new microsite at WalMart.com/green, Wal-Mart offers up a section called “10 Things You Can Do to Save Money and Make a Difference” supported by three cute little videos. In each video, a Wal-Mart “customer” touts the collective power of 180 million Wal-Mart customers. One notes that if each Wal-Mart customer used one energy saving light bulb it would be the ecological equivalent of removing one million cars from the roads. That’s a lot of cars. Another describes how by buying 180 million organic pajamas, Wal-Mart customers could “stop over one million gallons of pesticides from going into the earth.” That’s a lot of pesticides. The third “customer” notes that every Wal-Mart shopper bought one package of concentrated Tide they could “cut out over 50 million pounds of packaging waste.” That’s a lot of waste.
The point is, Wal-Mart isn’t simply riding the green wave, they are basically creating their own tsunami. By promoting “earth-friendly products at budget friendly prices” Wal-Mart is making green accessible, affordable and ubiquitous. This is Marketing for Good on a galactic scale. They are making it easy for their customers to be a little green simply by substituting one everyday product for another. At the same time, they are enlightening millions, 180 million to be precise, about the reasons to think green and buy green. Undoubtedly this effort will be good for Wal-Mart AND the world they share.