I don’t often defend Wal-Mart, but I do. Yesterday Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott spoke to business leaders at the Prince of Wales’s Business and the Environment Programme in London about Wal-Mart’s Sustainability 360 environmental plan.

The Guardian wanted to call Scott’s talk Greenwashing, but I think it’s a cheap shot. Here’s why.

I joined the environmental movement in 1970 when my freshman Earth Science class got involved in the first Earth Day. Twenty years later I would be for a brief time executive editor of something called the Recycling Media Group which published periodicals covering the business of solid-waste management. And in the times between and since I’ve been involved in a variety of citizen groups involved in environmental issues at all levels.

Scott’s talk yesterday was a good thing. Since the beginning, environmental groups have always understood that success would come when doing what was good for the environment was seen as an immediate benefit and not some feel-good action. Scott gets that.

When a company like Wal-Mart realizes that it can shave millions off of its costs by going Green, then the rest of the business world will stop and pay attention.

Nothing that Wal-Mart does environmentally gives it a pass on the other challenges it faces. Everyone needs to continue to hold its feet to the fire on the way it treats its employees and the communities they live in. But we have to recognize the good things too. This is not a zero sum game.

Wal-Mart isn’t doing this to get good press. Its doing it to improve its bottom line.

That’s a good thing.

And I applaud that.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 0737 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Energy, Environment, Lee Scott, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.