Wall Street Journal: For Companies Like P&G, It's Not Easy Going 'Green'
Fighting to save the environment can be tougher than it looks.
Consumer-product suppliers are pushing to make their products and supply chains more environmentally friendly in an effort to bolster their images with consumers and garner favor with retail titan Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Their initiatives — which have ranged from cutting down on packaging to shrinking detergent bottles — can help save costs for packaging and reduce fuel costs. But those moves also require substantial initial investments and sometimes even changes in manufacturing processes by suppliers.
………
Much of the consumer product companies' attempts in this area have come in response to a push by Wal-Mart, which in turn benefits from a better public image and more shelf space. Wal-Mart last week announced a partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project to measure the amount of energy used to create products throughout its supply chain. At that time, the retailer also detailed plans to sell only concentrated products in the liquid laundry-detergent category, a move that it said would save water, plastic resin and cardboard.
………
While consumers are paying far more attention to companies' impact on the environment, it is still hard to gauge and to quantify how much that trend will affect their buying decisions.
"What's on the horizon is going to be to see if consumers will be willing to pay more for products that are environmentally friendly," says Martin Franklin, chief executive of Jarden Corp., which makes consumer products.
Jarden has been working with Wal-Mart to improve its distribution logistics. "If you can improve efficiencies in routing to distribute your products, you are burning less fossil fuel. At the same time, you are saving money by doing so," Mr. Franklin says. "We try to look for win-wins. We have a business to run."
How do you like that? The Great Satan (a.k.a. Wal-Mart) saving the environment. 🙂
Leave a Reply