Wal-Mart Now Tracking Suppliers' Packaging

Wal-Mart announced a new initiative this week that could well have a lasting impact on anyone involved in the packaging industry. Label & Narrow Web magazine reported on their web site today that Wal-Mart has begun keeping track of its suppliers' use of packaging. It has created a "packaging scorecard" to measure it's vendors packaging with the goal of being more environmentally responsible.

Wal-Mart will be measuring a bunch of different metrics with the goal to reduce packaging across its global supply chain by 5% by 2013. Now, this seems to be an achievable goal to me, but if you are one of the 60,000 companies who supply Wal-Mart with products then it could have a dramatic impact. Wal-Mart will be releasing the details of its packaging scorecard early next year and there will be a one year trial period.

I think this is great news. More products are sold through Wal-Mart stores than any other place on earth so they have the ability to have a large impact. By encouraging more sustainable packaging among their suppliers Wal-Mart is going to force thousands of companies to think more about the environmental impact of their packaging.

The packaging industry has only recently begun to take the sustainable packaging seriously. Here at Lightning Labels we are working on some initiatives to bring you some more sustainable packaging choices. We will be announcing news about this here in the coming weeks and months after we have completed our research and testing.