No doubt that the Sustainable Product Index is a Walmart’s long term goal. Short term, the company is taking some immediately actionable initiatives.
Besides, encouraging suppliers to drop PVC packaging, Walmart would also install efficient LED lighting that can eliminate 35 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually. The giant consumer goods seller also plans to educate consumers about compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), and hopes to sell hundreds of millions of them. The result would be saving the equivalent output of several coal-fired power plants which pollute the environment.
Working with BP and SunPower, Walmart is actively putting solar panels on the roofs of its own stores in California and Hawaii to generate power for its own store operation.
So what can we do as a consumer? As individuals, how can we take part in reducing our own carbon footprint?
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says that we can accomplish a great deal by simply making some small changes in our daily habits. The NRDC is an environmental action group in the U.S. aiming at reducing global warming and create a clean energy future.
Beyond finding ways to slow climate change, the NRDC urged Americans to do a number of things.
First of all, the United States is the world’s second largest emitter of global warming pollution, pumping 7 billion tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) each year. But by paying attention to home energy use, transportation, food consumption and waste, Americans can help reduce one billion tons of carbon pollution.
That’s a 15% reduction which can be done at little or no cost. Nor will it severely affect our lifestyle. It isn’t hard to do at all, says NRDC.
Specific recommendations include reducing unwanted catalog subscriptions, decreasing vehicle idling, using a programmable thermostat would help cut down greenhouse gas emission also. Other recommended practices are replace lightbulbs with CFLs, set computers to hibernate mode, turn off unused lights often and eat poultry instead of red meat two days a week.
Such changes will not only reduce carbon emissions, but will save on home energy, transportation and food costs as well.
All is swell, but Americans are a nation of people of extravagance and waste. So how does NRDC actually plan to convince people to cut back?
NRDC seems to believe that the key to accomplish that is for people to realize that they aren’t doing this alone but others are doing it with them as well. Collectively, everyone’s contributions will aggregate and together we would make a difference.
Not quite scientific and it relies on quite a bit of a herd mentality.
Will it work?
NRDC thinks so and they are working with the Garrison Institute’s Climate Mind and Behavior symposium group to shift public behavior on a large scale. They think that the opportunity exists right now to apply their principles and insights in a concerted manner which will get people to adopt them faster.
Participants in the symposium were asked to form social groups to sketch out community projects and network them with building managers. All designed to actualize and accelerate the massive potential for positive climate impacts through individual choices and behavior shifts.
Certainly quite complex but it seems to have what it takes to handle a problem which ties into our very own existence.
The environmental cause requires a critical mass.
We have probably moved pass the early-adaptor stage. However, a little education is still necessary for sustainability to progressively advancing to mainstream practices.
I think the best thing is when it comes down to a very individual level, each and everyone of us can make a contribution for a better world tomorrow.
