Walmart's Environmental Impact: A Call for Sustainable Practices - Paper Example

Introduction

In the United States, Walmart is considered the second largest employer while in the world, it is the largest retail shop (ILSR 1). It is big, and the issues associated with it are even bigger. Over eight million metric tons of carbon pollution have been produced by Walmart since they depend on coal-fired electricity, and dirty power (ILSR 1). In the United States, the shop is considered one of the major coal-fired electricity users. According to ILSR (“Institute for Local Self-Reliance”), the operation of Walmart in the United States uses approximately six times the amount of electricity than the entire auto industry in the U.S. consumption which is more than 4.2 million tons annually (ILSR 1). Thus, the total emission of Walmart from the electricity it consumes is about 75 percent (Flammer and Caroline 758). The company prefers coal-fired electricity to other sources like wind and solar because it is the cheapest power. In as much as other retailers such as Kohl’s and Ikea and several upcoming small businesses try to generate clean power, Walmart has shown little to no progress in shifting to renewable energy (Flammer and Caroline 759). Instead of changing its source of power as it had earlier promised, Walmart has continued to endanger our planet and the health of both our families and communities. The situation can be changed if Walmart decides to shift to a clean source of power. Its continued use in coal-fired electricity has increased the pollution of carbon in several states like Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois. Missouri has been greatly affected due to the existence of highly polluting coal plants thus making Walmart use 900 million kilowatt-hours annually thus a tenth of that is the carbon pollution released annually to our environment (Flammer and Caroline 760). Residents of Missouri are pleading for better sources of energy that will not pollute the air and water and this can only be achieved if Walmart decides to reconsider other sources of energy like solar and wind that are clean and safe to the environment.

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Generate Greenhouse Gases by transporting huge Goods across the Ocean

Greenhouse gas emissions at Walmart are increasing rather than decreasing, between 2005 and 2014, its climatic change emissions increased by 3 million tons globally (Mitchelle and Wuthman 1). Walmart is known to be the number one company that transports a lot of goods across the oceans worldwide and that affects the climate negatively (Mitchelle and Wuthman 1). It ferries a lot of goods including televisions sets that are cheap, toys from factories that are located in Asia, T-shirts, and toasters to different parts of the world hence facilitating the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the airspace. In the past few years, the approximated amount of greenhouse gasses emitted at Walmart is 20 million metric tons whereas its competitors such as Carrefour and Tesco have emissions summing up to 4.8 and 4 million metric tons respectively (Meeks et al. 4). The pollutants are carbon dioxide and black carbon. Black carbon is not as common as carbon dioxide but its impact on the climate is also dangerous. In the past few years, it is noticeable that Walmart has been marketing itself as being the leading when it comes to sustainability and not talking about the impact it has on the environment due to the huge goods they ferry across the oceans. Moreover, it even omits the pollution caused by shipping in its annual reports regarding greenhouse gas emissions as though this section of their business is nonexistent. According to Mary Pat who is a member of the company and has also secured trophies in improving the labor practices of the company and the environmental impacts, shareholders should look at the measures to be taken to reduce the greenhouse gas emission and report the amount generated from shipping annually.

Habitat Loss

Walmart has always embraced sustainability publicly but has continued to maximize land consumption. The company has achieved this by building several low-rise supercenters. In the last fifteen years, Walmart has added 1100 in United States supercenters thus their store footmark expanded by a third (Flammer and Caroline 770). Most of the shops were built on undeveloped land. Ideally, this affected some critical habitats thus leading to the species being endangered (losing both their natural habitats and their genetic variations). Instead of redeveloping “greyfields,” they have continued to occupy virgin lands in most communities. They have several abandoned stores that require renovations as most people vacate them whenever a new store is built. The United States alone holds up to 150 stores of Walmart that are empty (Flammer and Caroline 776). Many humans and animals have lost their habitats because of such actions.

Conclusion

To conclude, Walmart can become better worldwide if it decides to support clean energy as this will reduce the carbon pollution that damages the air, water, and the climatic change. With greenhouse gas emissions, Walmart should open a viable store prototype globally that is likely to produce 35 percent less emission and should equally be more energy efficient. Also, they should be encouraged to make good use of their abandoned stores or developed areas in case they wish to add more supercenters instead of using virgin lands. It is essential for conserving the environment and maintaining unity in various communities and animal species.

Works Cited

Flammer, Caroline. "Corporate social responsibility and shareholder reaction: The environmental awareness of investors." Academy of Management Journal 56.3 (2013): 758-781.

https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2011.0744ILSR, “New Report Reveals Walmart’s Heavy Dependency on Coal-Fired Electricity, Undermining Company’s Pledge to Be An Environmental Leader.” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Nov20, 2014

https://ilsr.org/walmarts-dirty-energy-secret-release/Meeks, Margot, and Rachel JC Chen. "Can Walmart integrate values with value?: From sustainability to sustainable business." (2011).

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jsd/article/view/10685Stacy Mitchell and Walter Wuthmann, “Walmart spews a huge amount of climate pollution with its shipping, but doesn’t report any of it.” Grist Magazine, Jun2, 2015.

https://ilsr.org/walmart-shipping-climate-pollution/