An engaging, surprising story about the largest company in the world and how they have attempted to change their image.
As this Pulitzer Prize winning journalist begins, he takes us through - step by step - how the corporate giant Wal-Mart first began, as well as the troubles that the company experienced. And, most importantly, how Jib Ellison, a corporate consultant who turned into a true sustainability guru helped Wal-Mart better their image. Jib has made a career - a life, rather - of proving to companies that they need to “go green;” that the people of the world are truly interested in being ecologically sound.
The amazing amounts of data where Wal-Mart is concerned is mostly bleak. Wal-Mart has been seen for decades as an overlord - a tyrant that has had major lawsuits brought against them. In essence, a great deal of the world believed that Wal-Mart was an incredibly “secretive” company, offering no information on their business and corporate practices to the people. When Sam Walton, Sr. “invented” Wal-Mart he believed in the whole image of the “five-and-dime” store - with open door policies and a place where employees were called associates. Over the years however, with expenses skyrocketing, the whole ‘Made in the USA’ turned into a catastrophe.
A few years back, Dateline uncovered - live - a location where Wal-Mart was actually doing outsourcing, and child labor was being used. Wal-Mart’s stock fell overnight. Federal agents raided sixty-one Wal-Mart stores at one point to find 250 undocumented workers on the night shift, which caused even more lawsuits. There were air pollution lawsuits regarding the “output” of Wal-Mart stores; they were also sued because they were not meeting the minimum wage requirements and had to pay back all the employees who had not been treated fairly.
Now, for a large corporation, perhaps lawsuits are normal. But for Wal-Mart, the real scare came when their shoppers fell by over 8%. People were angry beyond belief at what this powerful overlord was doing, and swore to stop giving Wal-Mart their money.
Enter…Jib Ellison. Jib was the “go green” man - the CEO whisperer, some call him. Jib had meetings with huge companies such as Nike, Sony, Microsoft - big names, and over half of them decided to use Jib’s services. Wal-Mart was one. A few unbelievable facts about Wal-Mart given in this book include things such as, when they unplug the lights in their employee vending machines, $1.5 million is saved in electricity every year.
Almost overnight, Wal-Mart began to rebuild their corporate ‘core’ business model and it has extended to their ten thousand suppliers. From Wal-Mart changing the way their diesel trucks emit toxins, to stocking only concentrated detergent to sell, Wal-Mart has been slowly climbing out of the ‘muck’ they put themselves into. Even when Hurricane Katrina devastated the South, Wal-Mart appeared with food, bottled water, and other much-needed provisions and, to everyone’s surprise, there was no PR spin. Wal-Mart accepted no ‘pat on the back’ for their contributions, which was one of the first ‘looks’ at a company that was learning every day that; although they had been the force of nature - the people/their shoppers had taken over the helm, and Wal-Mart had to straighten themselves out.
This author has done a marvelous job as far as research, highlighting the good and bad points of this global corporation, and does a wonderful job of laying out all the information so that readers can truly see the inner workings of a company that almost, overnight, went from rich and powerful to Chapter 11 status…simply because they didn’t listen to the masses.
Quill Says: Although the future looks bright for Wal-Mart’s image, they will most definitely have to continue on their path to sustainability and NOT let history repeat itself. A very interesting read!