Months after CEO Lee Scott announced that Wal-Mart would become a better steward of the earth’s resources, the retailer introduced a packaging “scorecard” for its more than 60,000 suppliers. By inputting data about its product packaging into the scorecard, a supplier can benchmark its environmentally responsible behavior against that of its peers. Wal-Mart provided the scorecard to help suppliers evaluate their own performance and to encourage them to improve. The scorecard is part of Wal-Mart’s “Sustainability 360” initiative, which includes aggressive goals for reducing merchandise packaging, cutting solid waste by 25 percent, and making stores 25 percent more energy-efficient. More than 2,000 Wal-Mart suppliers gathered at the company-sponsored Live Better Sustainability Summit in 2007, learning from environmental experts and government groups about manufacturing efficiency, renewable energy, and the movement toward organic food and other green products. At the event, Scott introduced a new Wal-Mart reusable shopping bag labeled “Paper or Plastic? Neither.” The bag, made of 85 percent recycled materials, holds more than twice as much as the retailer’s disposable plastic bags.

• By introducing a packaging scorecard that lets Wal-Mart suppliers evaluate their own behavior and encourages self-improvement, Lee Scott used persuasion rather than a mandate to urge cooperation. How is this approach consistent with ethical behavior and CSR? 

• Wal-Mart’s critics claim the firm’s sustainability program is merely an attempt to “green-wash” a corporate reputation tainted by its big-box image. How does Scott’s behavior illustrate that he’s serious about the environment?