Wal-Mart's Sustainable Packaging Scorecard Begins

This week Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, began using its Sustainable Packaging Scorecard that was announced back in 2006. The scorecard rates suppliers on their progress towards developing sustainable packaging as well as their ability to help Wal-Mart reduce their environmental impact. The goal is a 5% reduction in packaging by 2013. That seemingly modest goal could help reduce carbon emissions by 700,000 metric tonnes according to Greenbiz.com.

More than 97,000 products from over 6,000 vendors are now part of the scorecard. The scorecard rates vendors packaging on several different metrics: greenhouse gas emissions, product-to-packaging ratios, space utilization, innovation, the amount of renewable energy used in packaging production, and emissions related to transportation. Wal-Mart is committed to working with vendors, trade associations and other organizations to ensure the scorecard remains equitable for all parties. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out over the coming months.

Consumers are becoming more aware of the impact that product packaging has on the environment. So the packaging industry is tackling this issue head on. Here at Lightning Labels we launched our corn-based material last year because we want to be at the forefront in sustainable packaging. There are many more initiatives we are working on this year in this area and we will share them with you here as we implement them.