Wal-Mart, Slightly Less Evil or Still the Devil Incarnate?
So I'm doing this really interesting research project on "Green-washing" which is essentially a term used to describe a business's push for environmentally friendly policy to cover up for other un-related controversial practices or for environmentally unsound practices that continue to exist or a businesse's attempts to merely give the impression of being Green solely for purposes of increasing sales without actually significantly changing anything (except, for example, the look and feel of product packaging).
So I read this article:
http://www.nlpc.org/pdfs/Wal-MartSpecial%20Report.pdf
And basically, I can't seem to come to a decision as to whether Wal-Mart is any less evil for pushing environmental practices (ex: requiring less packaging on the products it sells - and shifting to biodegradable corn-based packaging, requiring many of its food suppliers to either be organic or sustainable, cutting energy costs in stores by using florescents, LEDs and renewable energy sources for power, increasing it's hybrid truck fleet, supporting the purchase of land by conservationists, donating millions of dollars a year to renewable energy technology, etc.)
Because on one hand, being the bloated monster that it is, it has enormous power to make a serious difference in how companies produce things by forcing it's suppliers to comply with it's stringent demands. On the other hand, however, it really is a blatant attempt to cover up for it's continuing refusal to unionize, it's continuing violation of workers rights by offering shit wages and healthcare, and it's complete trampling of small town businesses. Not to mention, some of the ramifications of it's "green" policies will actually have numerous negative effects (ex: the true traditional organic industry will no longer be supported in the US as the pressure to provide organic foods cheaply will either cause organic farmers to adopt mass-producing mechanizations to run their farms, cause them to be compensated even LESS than they are now, or completely put them out of business by importing mass-produced organic foods from third-world countries with the same horrendous compensation that is seen by all of Wal-Mart's outsourced manufacturing).
But it's so big. And you have to be that big to make a big difference.
I'm still not going to shop there because it's business model is inherently evil ... But I can't decide if this environmental thing is going to change the world in a good way or not? Will it spark the move toward global environmentalism, or will it just be a fart in the wind with the wind being it's gross social, ethical, and economical injustices that may just trickle down to the environment anyway.
Any thoughts?
"It's like buying a car with 25% better fuel efficiency, and then driving it twice as much" - spokesperson of an environmental group on Wal-Mart's environmental efforts juxtaposed to it's business model for incessant expansion.