The Homa Files

TakeAway:

Seventh Generation specialty products will now be available at Wal-Mart (and its broad, mainstream audience), as Wal-Mart boosts its “green” efforts by winning over a company that said it would never sell there. 

“We now believe that we can have a bigger impact by partnering with Wal-Mart than by shunning it.” 

Seventh Generation lowered prices across the portfolio so that they cost as much as or only slightly more than the leading national brand. 

To justify its decision, Seventh Generation explains that Wal-Mart’s social and environmental targets were specific and its reports seemingly transparent.

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Excerpted from WSJ, “Adversary’s Clean Start with Wal-Mart” by Ellen Byron, July 26, 2010

For years, Seventh Generation Inc. co-founder Jeffrey Hollender liked to say “hell would freeze over” before his company’s environmentally friendly household products would be sold by Wal-Mart Stores . He feels differently now.

Starting next month, Seventh Generation staples, including laundry detergent, dish soap, all-purpose sprays and disinfectant wipes, will be sold in about 1,500 Wal-Mart stores.

Five years ago, the world’s largest retailer began setting goals to reduce its energy consumption, cut waste and introduce more sustainable products.

To be sure, selling green products is also increasingly lucrative.

While many shoppers switched to cheaper labels during the recession, sales of household products billed as environmentally friendly have held up relatively well despite their premium prices. 

• Sales of green household and laundry cleaning products rose to $557 million last year, having more than tripled since 2005.
• Green products are still a niche category, however, representing only about 3% of the overall $19.9 billion household cleaners and laundry market.

Seventh Generation’s change of heart toward Wal-Mart came gradually.

Seventh Generation and Wal-Mart are both members of the Sustainability Consortium, a group of manufacturers, retailers, nongovernmental organizations and government officials that is developing tools and strategies to evaluate the environmental and social impacts of products’ lifecycles.

“Wal-Mart can move quicker than probably any government on the planet.”

Edit by AMW

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Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704421304575383271764631764.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

This entry was posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:31 am and is filed under Environment - Green, Retailing, Walmart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.