Wal-Mart Begins to Rate Suppliers’ Packaging

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Today Wal-Mart will officially begin using its packaging scorecard to rate suppliers on their progress toward developing more ecologically sustainable packaging. Wal-Mart will take the scores of trading partners into account when making sourcing decisions. This marks the retailer’s latest step toward achieving a 5% packaging reduction in its supply chain by 2013. So far, 6,371 vendors have entered information related to 97,000 products into the online scoring tool. The scorecard — that’s been in a trial phase for the past year — is used to evaluate the sustainability of product packaging based on greenhouse gas emissions, product-to-packaging ratio, space utilization, innovation and the amount of renewable energy used in packaging production, and other factors. “It’s important to us that our suppliers see the intrinsic value behind sustainability, both for their business and the environment,” said Matt Kistler, senior vice president of sustainability at Wal-Mart, in a statement. “We’ve made significant progress throughout the first year of the scorecard and it is a key responsibility of our suppliers to input new products and update packaging changes on an ongoing basis.”

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