Walmart (Again)

I was struck today by the thoughtful column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times on Climate Change, Walmart, China and America. Friedman, the author of the runaway bestseller, The World is Flat, reflects on the "late to the party" embrace of "green policies" by megainstitutions like Walmart:

"The 'Wal-Mart environmental moment' starts with the C.E.O. adopting a green branding strategy as a purely defensive, public relations, marketing move. Then an accident happens — someone in the shipping department takes it seriously and comes up with a new way to package the latest product and saves $100,000. This gets the attention of the C.E.O., who turns to his P.R. adviser and says, 'Well, isn’t that interesting? Get me a sustainability expert. Let’s do this some more.'"

Friedman goes on to trace how this subversive opening can develop a logic and momentum that can lead to a major Walmart declaring:

“Wal-Mart will encourage its suppliers to measure and manage their greenhouse gas emissions, and ultimately reduce the total carbon footprint of Wal-Mart’s indirect emissions. We look forward to other global corporations following Wal-Mart’s lead.”

Friedman's column is at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/ opinion/26friedman.html

Right now, Walmart is silent on their intentions in Ventura. They have a signed lease on the K-Mart on Victoria. If they choose, they can move in when K-Mart moves out. Walmart has indicated their interest in building a new store. The City has consistently insisted that if they do, they need to address the language in our 2005 General Plan regarding the Victoria Corridor that specifically calls for "redesigning the current array of single-use shopping centers and retail uses with a mix of building types, uses and public and private frontages" and calls for "eliminating 'big box', megablock auto-oriented strip development and the traffic patterns it generates." To clearly spell out what IS compatible on Victoria, a draft new code has been prepared for the street that calls for re-establishing a human scale on the eight-lane boulevard:

http://www.cityofventura.net/victoria

With a Council election going on, while Walmart is silent, many other voices in the community are not. Some are on the warpath, vowing to "stop Walmart." Others are critical that the City has not warmly embraced the sales tax revenue that a new Walmart would generate.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

But the silence from Walmart is interesting. Perhaps part of the reason is the debate now raging inside the company about what kind of future they will pursue. Perhaps Ventura might be one of the turning points for them. There are those who think Walmart represents implacable evil and everything they do is simply a cynical effort to "greenwash" their exploitive corporate practices. But what if the largest corporation in the history of the world ended up being a leader that other corporations follow? What if Ventura was one of the places where they began by building a store that respected, rather than degraded, the built environment? That discouraged, instead of encouraged, our dependence on foreign oil? That reduced, rather than increased, our emission of greenhouse gases?

Worth thinking about . . .

P.S. The Sacramento Bee has an article on Walmart's shifting strategy in California:

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/406746.html

Communicating: Chapter Two

This week, Ventura residents will be receiving a "Two Year Report" on how Ventura is doing in actually implementing the General Plan passed in August of 2005.

This is the third of our "annual reports" that include a "report card" on progress toward achieving the community's strategic visions.

All California cities are required to have a general plan. But very few communities actually follow their plans -- and even fewer publicly report on results.

That's too bad. Public schools are now required to report on their results. Cities should be held to the same standards.

Of course, there is not yet a standard statewide set of standards for cities. We hope that our example will help establish some reliable, objective benchmarks for measuring how well cities perform.

• City of Ventura Annual Report