Tag: wal-mart

Organics Rotting in Bad Economy

  • Shopping at organic foods stores is one thing consumers are cutting back on (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Watching paychecks shrink and
retirement funds dissolve is making people
change their buying habits. Many are
skipping things like natural foods because
they’re seen as luxuries. But Julie Grant
reports some analysts say this is just a
short term trend:

Transcript

Watching paychecks shrink and
retirement funds dissolve is making people
change their buying habits. Many are
skipping things like natural foods because
they’re seen as luxuries. But Julie Grant
reports some analysts say this is just a
short term trend:

Michelle DeSalvo’s daughter plans to go to college next
year. But her husband might need to take a pay cut just to
keep his job. So they’re trying to save money wherever
possible. That means no more shopping at the natural foods
store.

Michelle DeSalvo: “It’s definitely more expensive. You have
to go to things that are less expensive and natural is
definitely not that.”

Julie Grant: “So what has changed in your shopping habits?”

Michelle DeSalco: “I go to Wal-Mart. (laughs) Yeah, for
food. It’s cheaper.”

Not everyone is rushing to Wal-Mart.

Brenda Fisher says her family is struggling to pay for two
kids in college, and they’re looking for different ways to buy
food. She used to stop at the butcher shop at Whole Foods
– the national, natural foods supermarket. But not anymore.

“So I would buy their meats because their meats are
incredible. So um, I just can’t afford it. I would actually like
to buy a whole cow from a farmer, because they’re cheaper.
And I just have to get the money together.”

Okay, so not everyone wants to buy a cow. But a lot of
people are moving away from things that seem more
expensive – like natural and organic products.

In recent years, those foods have seen huge sales growth.
But as the economy has turned sour, so have their sales.
Whole Foods Store has seen a considerable sales drop at its
stores. And the company’s stock prices plunged more than
70% this year.

Nancy Koehn is professor of the history of retailing and
consumer behavior at the Harvard business school.
She says some people see upscale stores such as Whole
Foods as an indulgence – and that’s not what they’re
wanting.

“I think we will see, we are seeing, a rush away from a lot of
luxury right now.”

Koehn says that’s short term. She says consumers have
been floored by the tanking of the stock market and the
vulnerability of the financial systems. And they’ve done
something we haven’t seen in 25 years: they’ve stopped
buying.

But Koehn says this is just one moment. She says people
will walk back into stores. But they will have revised
priorities for their homes and families.

“There’s no way anyone’s coming out of this moment without
being effected by it. It’s a much more complicated story than
the rush to Wal-Mart.”

Koehn says natural foods stores, like Whole Foods, and
other environmentally-centered companies, are actually in
just the right place for the long term economic trend. When
consumers start buying again, she thinks, many will spend
money in places that are taking care of workers, animals,
and the environment.

“And I think we’re going to see that the same things that built
Whole Foods, that have made the environment and our
interconnectedness so important to people, and moved that
from item number 10 or 20 on people’s lists of important
issues up to the top 2 to 4. Those aren’t going away because
we’re in the trough of a business cycle.”

Koehn expects that many people will spend their holiday
money at big box discount stores. But she says many who
feel they’ve been treated badly in the economic downturn will
go back to the companies they think treat people and the
environment better.

Koehn expects that by early next year, companies that get
behind sustainable products will wind up being the economic
winners.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Better Packaging, Bigger Benefits

  • Employees wrap office furniture in blankets as one element of a green shipping method used by Perkins Specialized Transportation to cut carbon emissions. (Photo courtesy of Perkins)

Companies are looking at new ways to
use less packaging and save fuel. It’s all
considered “carbon reduction,” but it comes
down to saving money. Lester Graham reports
on a couple of companies finding some success:

Transcript

Companies are looking at new ways to
use less packaging and save fuel. It’s all
considered “carbon reduction,” but it comes
down to saving money. Lester Graham reports
on a couple of companies finding some success:

Many environmentalists love to hate Wal-Mart. But, in recent years, Wal-Mart has been
encouraging its suppliers to find ways to reduce environmental impacts.

Now, that’s important because Wal-Mart is huge. As its suppliers go green, it’s having a
ripple effect on the suppliers’ suppliers and all their competitors.

So here’s what happens. Companies that come up with ways to reduce environmental
impacts are rewarded. Wal-Mart gives them more store shelf space and promotions.

Rand Waddoups is with Wal-Mart. He says electronics company Hewlitt-Packard took
the challenge to a whole new level.

“They came back with this idea to completely remove the packaging from the laptops that they’re selling us, and instead have a messenger bag that we give the customers to take home with them. In addition to that, it’s Energy Star product, it’s Ross compliant – which is reduction of hazardous substances. It just ended up being a really great laptop.”

It’s not just Wal-Mart and its suppliers that are trying to reduce packaging.

Other manufacturers and shippers are finding ways to get rid of all the cardboard and
styrofoam and plastic wrapping.

The office furniture company Haworth worked with the shipper Perkins Specialized
Transportation. Instead of boxing up chairs and desks with cardboard and styrofoam,
the companies decided to test other ways of shipping. Greg Maiers is the the shipper,
Perkins.

“About a third of their shipments we converted to a blanket-wrapping or using pads to secure the product in decking inside the trailers, as opposed to the way they had been doing it, with cardboard boxes.”

So instead of stacking bulky boxes, they just put the furniture in, put in a wood deck,
and put in another layer on top of that – all cushioned with pads.

The tests came up with three results. One: they didn’t have to buy cardboard boxing.
That made their retail customers happy because they didn’t have to deal with throwing
all that stuff away or trying to recycle it. Two: they could actually fit more office
furniture on the truck, so they didn’t need as many trucks on the road. Three: it does
take more labor to pack in the furniture and wrap it in blankets, stack the decks and so
on, so that cost a little more, but remember, there were fewer trucks, and that savings
more than offset that additional labor cost. So overall, shipping was cheaper.

Greg Maiers says corporate America is learning, and changing.

“Many, many industries are clearly getting the indication that there is an environmental impact that’s going on, there’s a change, and we have to address it. And many, many companies are doing it.”

And a lot of those companies are finding it’s also good for the bottom line.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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What’s Behind the Organic Milk Label?

  • Many people now choose organic milk, but there are some problems with the USDA organic certification. (Photo by Adrian Becerra)

Products labeled “organic” used to be associated with
hippie culture. Ever since the National Organic Standards
went into effect five years ago, organic has become big
business. Sales of organic products now total about 20-billion dollars a year in the U.S. But that quick growth
spurt is coming with some growing pains. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

Products labeled “organic” used to be associated with
hippie culture. Ever since the National Organic Standards
went into effect five years ago, organic has become big
business. Sales of organic products now total about 20-billion dollars a year in the U.S. But that quick growth
spurt is coming with some growing pains. Julie Grant
reports:


Kara Skora is a part-time college professor, and her family
doesn’t make a lot of money. She’s wearing a hand-me-down
sweater. She’s been eyeing some bracelets at this Target
store, but she quickly walks away. She isn’t going to
spend her money on something so frivolous. Instead, Skora
goes to the dairy case and pulls out a carton of organic
milk. At $3.50, it’s nearly double the price of a regular
half gallon. But Skora thinks the higher cost is worth it
for her two sons:


“Because it’s the one thing. I mean, we don’t go out to
dinner, we don’t waste money on things. We don’t have much
money to spend. But I figured, this is becoming their
bodies. This is becoming their bones and their flesh, and what
little they have, they’re both skinny little boys. So I’m
willing to go into debt to get organic milk.


Julie Grant: “You really go into debt?”


“Oh yeah, we’re in credit card debt. I think a couple
thousand dollars of that every year is organic milk. It’s
the one thing we splurge on.”


Skora used to have to go to a health food store to find
organic milk. These days, she can buy it a lot of places.
And whether she’s buying it at Target or somewhere else,
she trusts that the government’s organic label means the milk
meets certain standards.


It used to be, a label that said “organic” could mean all
kinds of things. Different state agencies and private
organizations each had their own organic standards. Each
trained their own people to inspect farms – to make sure
farmers were meeting their organization’s rules.


Then, five years ago, the US Department of Agriculture
launched the National Organic Program. Now, the people who
inspect organic farms are all looking at the same set of
rules: the USDA’s national standards.


A national standard means farmers know what they need to do
to sell milk as organic in every state. So now big dairy
farms are churning out organic milk to be shipped out
across the nation.


Leslie Zuck is director of Pennsylvania Certified Organic,
one of the certifiers for the USDA. Zuck says the national
program has some problems. The standards aren’t always
specific, so it can be difficult for certifiers and farmers
to know if they’re doing the right things. For instance,
one big concern is how long dairy cows get to be out on grass:


“You go out there and you say, we don’t think enough
pasture, and they say how much is enough and we say, well, we don’t really know but we don’t think you have
enough.”


Since some rules are a little fuzzy, some certifiers are more
lenient than others:


“Some certifiers have interpreted that part of the regulation as
not really requiring that cows have pasture all the time, and that they don’t
really have to have a lot of grass to eat, they just have to be out there walking around few hours a day.”


Zuck says some dairy producers find out which agencies will
interpret the standards the way the farmers want, and hire
those certifiers:


Barbara Robinson: “Well, that shouldn’t be the case.”


Barbara Robinson is USDA administrator of the National
Organic Program.


“Certifying agents should all be applying rules in the same
way.”


Robinson concedes many issues, such as the required amount
of pasture, need to be clarified in the national rules.
Some environmentalists were appalled that a large dairy
producer in Colorado was certified organic. Aurora Farms
confined its cows indoors for nine months out of the year.
Robinson says the USDA considered revoking the company’s
certification, but instead signed an agreement – and she says Aurora
Farms has been improving its practices:


“I don’t have any problems telling consumers who go into
retail market and purchase organic milk at Wal-Mart that
they are purchasing properly labeled certified organic
milk. They can feel comfortable with that.”


And Wal-Mart and Target are exactly the kinds of retailers
that Aurora Farms supplies with its organic milk.


Meantime, the people who buy that milk say they expect the
government to make sure the dairies are living up to the
national standards. Especially since customers like Kara
Skora have to sacrifice so much to pay the higher prices of
milk with an organic label.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Protesters Target Pvc

  • Activists want Target to stop carrying PVC plastic products because of potential links with toxins. (photo by Lester Graham)

Polyvinyl chloride and the chemicals used to make it are thought to be
linked to birth defects and cancers. So activists are urging companies
to stop using the plastic. America’s 6th largest retailer Target was
recently handed 10,000 signatures at its annual shareholders
meeting. The petition urges the company to phase out the use of PVC
plastic in the products it sells. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports:

Transcript

Polyvinyl chloride and the chemicals used
to make it are thought by some to be linked to
birth defects and cancers. The petition was
delivered to the annual shareholders meeting.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton has more:


In white hazmat suits and dust masks, about 30 protesters chant on the street in front of the new Target store.
It’s the site of this year’s shareholder meeting
and one of those protesters is Brad Melzer, a biology professor at Lake Erie
College in Ohio. But Melzer’s not shaking a protest sign right now. Instead, he’s trying to keep his infant
son shaded and cool in the noon-day sun. As little Winston lounges in a stroller, sucking on a bottle, Melzer says he’s
here today because he’s read about PVC plastic and its possible toxicity to
children:


“To be honest, I don’t even know if this nipple has PVC in it. He could already be
ingesting these things.”


Protests like this one are happening simultaneously in 200 locations across the country,
but in Cleveland, protesters have turned in a petition with 10,000 signatures urging Target
to stop stocking its shelvesproducts containing polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.


Not too far away from the Melzers, is Doctor Cynthia Bearer of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and she chats with a
woman holding a protest sign reading “Way off Target with Toxic Toys.”


Bearer’s main concern is chemicals called pthalates, which help soften PVC plastic. The
most common is known as DEHP. Bearer says the chemicals may leach from teething
rings, shower curtains and packaging, and put young children at risk:


“Pthalates are known to be endocrine disrupters. They interact with the thyroid
hormone.”


And they can cause abnormalities in infants, she says, including reproductive
difficulties:


“So we can actually measure health effects, particularly on male infants in terms of their
sexual development at the time of birth from exposure to pthalates.”


Like Dr. Bearer and Brad Melzer, some of the protesters are science professionals.
Some are just concerned parents and others are advocates for children. Maureen Swanson is with the Learning Disabilities Association of America. She says the development of children’s brains might be impaired by exposure
to chemicals in PVC. She says even if science can’t pinpoint right now why 1 in 6
children suffer from learning disabilities, something needs to be done. She says the burden on America’s schools is growing:


“The percentage of school funding that has to go to help these kids who have learning
and developmental disabilities, then that impacts the school’s ability to fund other
educational needs.”


Some precautions have been made to reduce exposure to some of the PVC-related chemicals.
The US Food and Drug Administration has advised against using DEHP in medical
devices, and the Environmental Protection Agency has listed it as a probable carcinogen,
but the government doesn’t bar the use of DEHP in any product.


Even without the ban on the chemicals, 53 companies, including Target’s largest competitor, Wal-Mart, have begun phasing
out the products that contain PVC. Target Spokeswoman Carolyn Brookter says her company has some options it’s working on,
but it’s reluctant to set a time table for phasing out PVC. But she says that doesn’t mean that Target isn’t taking the
issue seriously:


“We’re talking to out buyers, we’re talking to our venders and we’re asking them to look
into some alternatives that we have.”


If Target doesn’t move on the PVC issue, new dad Brian Melzer
says he’ll be left with a difficult shopping dilemma:


“I don’t like shopping at Wal-Mart at all. But… if Target continues its practices of not phasing
out PVCs. Yeah, then definitely I would choose one of their competitors, and if it had to
be Wal-Mart, I guess it would have to be Wal-Mart.”


However, at this point, Target Spokeswoman Brookter doesn’t think the company will
lose business on this single issue.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

Protesters Target Pvc

Last week, America’s 6th largest retailer Target was handed 10,000 signatures at its Annual Shareholders meeting. The petition urges the company to phase out the use of PVC plastic in the products it sells. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports:

Transcript

Last week, America’s 6th largest retailer Target was handed 10 thousand
signatures at its Annual Shareholders meeting. The petition urges the
company to phase out the use of PVC plastic in the products it sells.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports:


(Sound of protestors)


Protesters at Target’s Shareholder meeting wore white hazmat suits as
they urged the company to phase out PVC, or Polyvinyl Chloride. PVC is
used in packaging, shower curtains, teething rings and other consumer
products it sells. Mark Schade is a spokesman for the Center for
Health, Environment and Justice:


We’re concerned about PVC because from manufacture to disposal PVC is
the worst plastic for our health and environment. Releasing chemicals
that are known to cause cancer, learning disabilities, reproductive
health problems, birth defects and many other health issues.


Target says it’s asking its suppliers to look into alternatives for PVC
but the company is reluctant to set a timetable for phasing out the
plastic. Other companies, such as Wal-Mart, Ikea, Johnson and Johnson,
Lego, Nike, Microsoft have already begun the process.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Interview – Greening the Business World

Some businesses once considered
‘bad actors’ by environmentalists are now being
praised for leading the ‘corporate greening’
movement. Lester Graham spoke with an advisor who
helped some of those companies, John Elkington.
Elkington is the founder of the consulting firm
SustainAbility. He says not all corporations have
realized the importance of becoming more
environmentally-friendly at the same time:

Transcript

Some businesses once considered
‘bad actors’ by environmentalists are now being
praised for leading the ‘corporate greening’
movement. Lester Graham spoke with an advisor who
helped some of those companies, John Elkington.
Elkington is the founder of the consulting firm
SustainAbility. He says not all corporations have
realized the importance of becoming more
environmentally-friendly at the same time:


JE: Around the world, different regions are in very different places
and companies are in different places as a result of that. In the
United States you’ve had a period of, to some degree on issues like
climate change, denial. And that’s beginning to break down, and it’s
breaking down very rapidly. So you see companies, for example in the
financial sector like Goldman-Saks, talking about the environment and
green issues in a very, very different way than they would’ve done a
few years ago.


You see General Electric, which hasn’t been a great ally of
environmental movement, launching it’s Ecomagination initiative. And
initially, people dismissing that very much as greenwash, but when you
look at the numbers, very serious growth going on inside that business
and some of these areas. And then, perhaps to top it all, you see Wal-
Mart, most peoples’ sort of bogey company in a way, announcing some if
its initiatives around renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable
fisheries and so on. And in a sense, it almost doesn’t matter whether
Wal-Mart is serious or genuinely wanting to go green or whatever. This
stuff is starting to cascade through the supply chain. They have 61,000
vendors, these companies around the world. And the work that we do with
companies, they’re saying, whether they’re 3M, or Dupont, or Dow…
they’re saying this company is serious and it’s driving us to do things
we hadn’t previously thought were possible.


LG: Let’s look at consumer level. I think typically, most people are
not spending a lot of time researching which brand of corn flakes is
most carbon-free or sustainable. I think most people make their
decisions on commercials or packaging at the store. How can they make
better choices about sustainable products or companies?


JE: You’re absolutely right. I think most people rely on things like
brands. I mean, they trust a brand or they don’t and they hope a brand
will deal with environmental or fair trade or whatever issues
appropriately. But there are certain moments when things start to speed
up, and this is one of them, and then a different set of actors come
in.


I mean, traditionally, the activist campaigning groups, the NGOs, and
so on, play an incredibly important role in denting brands or building
the credibility of particular brands. And increasingly you get these
standards around environmental and fair trade issues. But I think
actually the key actors at the moment – this is certainly true in
Europe and my own country, the United Kingdom – you’re seeing
supermarkets getting involved again. They did it in the late 80s, early
90s, they played a very important role. That has a huge knock on
impact.


LG: Let’s talk about the energy sector for just a moment. We’ve seen a
lot of renewable energy being built around the world lately. But we
seem to see a lot of power companies, some oil companies still digging
in their heels and fighting tooth and nail to keep things just the way
they are. Are we going to see a sea change in the energy sector like we
are beginning to see in many of the other sectors of the economy?


JE: That’s a very difficult question to answer because I think you’re
going to see several different trends at the same time. You’re going to
see for example, the coal industry, Peabody and people like that,
digging in and saying basically, we’re going to burn a huge amount of
coal. Yes it’s going to have to be clean coal but you’re going to have
that trend. You’re going to have the Exxon Mobiles of this world trying
to look a bit more civilized and say we’ve been misunderstood, we’ve
got to communicate better and so on… But basically still, anti-
climate change is a big issue.


And then you’ve got a bunch of actors. In Europe, you’ve got companies
like Statoil, BP, Shell, who’ve actually gone through that tipping
point quite a number of years back, basically believe climate change is
a reality… Still thing fossil fuels is a very large part of our
energy future, but still starting to explore renewables and energy
efficiency and so on. So I think you’ve got a differentiation and I
don’t think this is an issue of leopards changing their spots. I mean,
some of the companies that are finding this very difficult to deal with
will continue to find it very difficult to deal with even if they
become a bit more sophisticated on the communication front.


HOST TAG: John Elkington is the founder of the consulting firm
SustainAbility. He spoke with the Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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Natural Food Stores Mix

If you buy groceries at the big natural food stores, your options just
got a little slimmer. Whole Foods Market plans to buy its smaller
rival, Wild Oats. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

If you buy groceries at the big natural food stores, your options just
got a little slimmer. Whole Foods Market plans to buy its smaller
rival, Wild Oats. Julie Grant reports:


Whole Foods and Wild Oats are the nation’s best-known names in organic
grocers. Many a mom and pop health food store has fallen over the
past decade as those big-players have moved into towns across the
country.


Between them, they’ve opened about 300 stores, providing one-stop
shopping for all the health-conscious consumers’ needs,
everything from fresh produce and seafood to ready-made meals to
cleaning supplies.


But as more people want to buy natural and organic foods, more
mainstream stores, from Safeway to Wal-Mart Super Centers, want some of the
action. Economists say natural foods stores have been losing market
share to those national grocery chains.


Whole Foods says buying Wild Oats will boost its presence in
Florida, the Rockies, and the Pacific Northwest.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Commentary – The Green Coordinator

Wal-Mart, with its sprawling parking lots and its abundance of plastics,often makes an easy target for environmentalists. But does being big haveto mean being bad? Big business can mean big money and a big commitment tothe environment. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia Kingrecently saw a glimmer of hope in the vast aisles of a super Wal-Mart. Ordid she?