Walmart’s Sustainable Product Index is an ambitious undertaking by a firm that was notoriously insensitive to the destructive impact it had both directly and indirectly onto the communities and the environment through its business expansion strategies.
While many critics remained skeptical about the true drivers behind this project seeing it as an attempt by the firm to take the attention away from its unfavorable business practices and buy its way into the rest of the communities which were strongly opposing its entrance into their markets, many others appreciated the small steps Walmart was taking in the direction of possibly changing the entire industry standards in terms of business operations and social impact.
Having already gained some momentum through small wins in this program, I strongly believe that Walmart should continue investing time and resources in some well-defined goals. In 5 years from now, the firm should be able to create a well defined and verifiable Sustainable Product Index that will potentially bring end-customers closer to the supplier empowering them with necessary authentic data to decide the fate of any product on the shelf.
To create an index that will be approved across the board as the standard for any practice, it should come out of an independent group of specialists who are able to sustain an objective attitude and save Walmart from diving into conflicts of interest. This industry council should include scientists, activists and consultants who understand each independent sector that Walmart deals with and are able to design a business process for evaluating general practices, having exclusive access to Walmart’s immense datastore and supplier-base. These independent councils should constantly monitor industry evolutions and update their indices as necessary keeping it viable at all times. For example, Marine Stewardship Council