How green is green? Creating the Product Sustainability Index

The Product Sustainability Index is a comprehensive new program launched in Canada in 2010 to ultimately develop a customer-friendly ‘green’ ratings system to apply to every product in our stores.

This program is divided into three main phases with an estimated timeframe of five to seven years:

Contributing to a global initiative

Our efforts here are part of a Walmart global initiative to establish the index and learn more about the products themselves. Our American counterparts have partnered with other leading corporations, NGOs and universities to form the Sustainability Consortium, a collective effort to find sustainable solutions for a better tomorrow.

The Consortium plans to study the entire lifecycle of products within their scope to create a comprehensive database – detailing every stage of the product’s evolution from a green perspective: from raw materials to the manufacturing process and distribution, through to its actual usage and recycling or disposal.

Walmart is also accelerating the agricultural focus of the index, starting with a Sustainable Produce Assessment for top producers in its Global Food Sourcing network by the end of 2011