Zero Waste: In pursuit of perfection
We succeeded in making major progress toward our second core environmental goal to create zero waste in two of our national retail stores in 2010.
Our Walmart Canada stores in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia and Waterdown, Ontario both reported near zero waste diversion for the year, achieving more than 95 per cent waste diversion. Our Mississauga home office achieved 91 per cent waste diversion in its main building – nearing its ultimate goal of 95 per cent.
With the near zero waste success now in two stores, the focus shifts to expand the program to more stores across Canada. To improve from 85 to 100 per cent waste diversion, we must find ways to deal with the lack of recycling infrastructure in some localities.
Enabling stores to chart progress
We are equally keen to improve waste diversion from the internal reporting side. That means getting reports back to stores more frequently so they can monitor their progress.
Our plan in 2011 is to install a new reporting system capable of collecting richer data and share this information with stores on The WIRE, our Walmart Canada intranet. We think it will work well for positive feedback: store managers will be able to print off the latest results and share them in team meetings to celebrate their improvement.
