Wal Mart Seeing Green

The world's largest retailing company is working hard to turn around it's poor environmental image. After years of criticism, the $300 billion giant is making positive changes, making money from it, and getting praise from environmental groups and people in power.

Among Wal Mart's latest changes is a plan to reduce packaging by 5% over 5 years. It sounds insignificant until you think about the size and influence of the company. It employs more people than any other company in the world (1,800,000 employees), and is second in terms of revenue generated.

Anything that Wal Mart does has a far reaching effect that influences suppliers, competitors, and consumers in a range of ways.

Wal Mart has also vowed to invest $500 million each year into energy saving technology. Here's a few more initiatives being taken by the retailing giant, taken from USA Today..

• Slash gasoline use by its trucking fleet, one of the largest in the USA, and use more hybrid trucks to increase efficiency by 25% over the next three years and double it within 10 years. That will save $310 million a year by 2015, the company says.
• Buy 100% of its wild-caught salmon and frozen fish for the North American market only from fisheries that are certified as "sustainable" by the non-profit Marine Stewardship Council within three to five years. That designation means areas of the ocean aren't fished in ways that destroy fish populations.
• Cut energy use at its more than 7,000 stores worldwide by 30% and cut greenhouse-gas emissions at existing stores by 20% in seven years. Wal-Mart is the largest private electricity user in the USA.
• Reduce solid waste from U.S. stores by 25% within three years.

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