Wal-Mart to mark merchandise for environmental impact

Wal-Mart is about to take a step forward in ushering in a new paradigm of environment-friendly retailing. In addition to price tags, products at Wal-Mart will also have information relating to products' carbon footprint, amount of water used and the air pollution caused in creating them.

The world's largest retailer is taking its commitment to the environment to the level of a mission to assess the social and environmental impact of every item that it puts up for sale. Helping the retailer in this cause are scholars, suppliers and environmental groups that will create an electronic indexing system for products' environmental impact information.

The idea is to evolve a universal rating system that scores products on a scale that will factor in their environmental and social sustainability over their life cycle. This will be on the lines of nutritional labels that food items now carry.

With the rating system, retailers and product suppliers will be able to refer an integrated scale that allows for a broader view of sustainability rather than focusing on a few sustainability goals - lower emissions or water conservation or waste reduction.

The initiative is aimed to create greater awareness and initiate a chain reaction that will see other retailers adopt the indexing system. The system is expected be ready for adoption over the next five years.

According to Michael T Duke, Wal-Mart's president and chief executive there is a need to change the way products are made and sold. He plans to tell about 1,500 of the company's suppliers and employees, at a sustainability meeting on Thursday that there is an urgent need to make consumption itself smarter and sustainable.