W-M delays green report

The Financial Times and others report that Wal-Mart is delaying its "green report."
The story notes Wal-Mart has not set a date for the release of the report, which deals with the retailer's commitment to the environment and social sustainability.

Flashback: The Packer's David Mitchell wrote in November of last year:

Now suppliers who do business with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Bentonville, Ark., and its Sam's Club division soon will be asked to take one more step to bring their products to market.
The world's largest retailer announced in September that it planned to reduce packaging from its global supply chain by 5% by 2013. On Nov. 1 at the Conference at Pack Expo, Wal-Mart spelled out how it planned to reach that goal with Web-based scorecards that will rank suppliers and packaging manufacturers. By 2008, packaging sustainability information gleaned from those scorecards will be one of the factors Wal-Mart considers in purchasing decisions, including produce.
"We at Wal-Mart recognize that we have unique strengths and a unique opportunity to have a positive impact on the environment through our own actions, those of our customers and those of our suppliers," said Matt Kistler, vice president of package and product innovations for Sam's Club. Starting Feb. 7, Wal-Mart plans to begin a one-year trial, during which its 60,000 global suppliers -- including more than 1,000 produce shippers in North America -- will input, store and track data about their packaging. Suppliers will be rated on greenhouse gas emissions, material content, cube utilization, transportation, recycled content, renewable energy, innovation and other factors related to their packaging.


TK: Wal-Mart''s scorecard on itself has been delayed. While such an effort is undeniably complex, Wal-Mart's follow through on this issue is a measure whether it can walk the talk as well as talk the talk.