Easy Going Green

Eco-Retail Furniture OSS Shopping...?

Shopping for Eco-RTA furniture at the OSS channel has turned out to be frustrating, to say the least, but  surprisingly so has shopping for a simple eco-friendly pen, pencil and highlighter! What is the deal with the office superstores - are they giving up to Wal-Mart without a fight? I did find two bright "green" spots out there, but not without a lot of digging and without any useful help from the sales floor. Although I would like to say that the salespeople at Staples and Office Depot fell over themselves trying to find anything they could that was eco-friendly for me, even after their managers laughed at them for even thinking that the store would carry such things. Office Max, cut back on useless overhead, they just stood around chatting with each other and didn't even bother to greet me or anyone else in the furniture department. I had to help some guy figure out that the hutch was not really attached on a Z-Line desk or he was ready to walk out and find another product. I think I deserve a commission to cover my gas.

Anyway, remember the on-line/catalog ranking from my previous posting - first Staples (thanks to the Eco-Easy icon), then Office Depot for having two Green products (Global's Genoa & OD's Quantum Realspace), then Office Max for having nothing. Well, things fell dramatically different after the in-store visits...

IF Wal-Mart is the new FDA...

I am really not trying to pick on Wal-Mart this month...it is just that all the other retailers just seem to sitting around doing nothing (which you will see in my upcoming reviews.) Right now though, be sure to check the trackback to "How Wal-Mart has Become the New FDA" in the GreenBiz.com Buzz. With Wal-Mart's current behavior on the LACEY and CARB issues following this model, I think the more consumer and watchdog group pressure they receive, the more the furniture industry will change as a whole. It is already happening now - Wal-Mart requires its vendors to change packaging or wood type immediately and then once a vendor finds a way to make it cheap enough for Wal-Mart, they start making it for all the OSS and wholesale clubs. So why shouldn't the other buyers sit on their butts all day? As long as they make sure they have vendors that are selling to Wal-Mart - let them do all the work for them, it's great strategy - not a leadership strategy, but a very efficient, energy-conserving strategy. Green is about conserving energy too, isn't it?

As for Wal-Mart as the FDA, thought I would dust off one of my commentaries on BPA (Bisphenol A) too...

WWF & Wal-Mart - it's wood not wrestling!

Seems like a stretch to see the cute little World Wildlife Fund Panda logo and the Wal-Mart Smiley logo in the same ad, let alone on their names on the same press release...but today both organizations announce that Wal-Mart has joined the WWF Global Forest and Trade Network. The network coordinates the initiative to protect threatened and valuable forests like the threatened forests in the Amazon, Amur-Heilong (Russia), Borneo, Sumatra, Congo, and Mekong (Southeast Asia.)
Through the WWF's initiative, the GFTN assists companies in evaluating their procurement and implementing appropriate action plans...

Wal-Mart & Warehouse Clubs Feed America’s Low-Carbon Diet with Green Products

With projections of more than $400 billion in sales of lifestyle and sustainable products by 2010 by the Nielsen Company, the Green market is hotter than global warming. 81% of households purchase products labeled as “green” or “organic” spending up to four times as much as “non-green” consumers. Warehouse Clubs have managed to capture a greater market share with 10% more spent in that channel than others. And with Wal-Mart on the bandwagon it means that other retailers are starting to wonder whether or not this is just a marketing trend or viable way of conducting business. After all Wal-Mart doesn’t ever do anything that isn’t in its own self interest. So, is there a sustainable business model in sustainable business conduct?