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It may seem like the poster child for uber-consumption, but Wal-Mart Canada Corp. is intent on greening its image.
On Wednesday, the discount titan aims to make an environmental splash by hosting a sustainability business summit in Vancouver. It puts the retailer in the global spotlight just two days before the start the Olympic Games in that city.
To help gain attention, it invited David Suzuki as the keynote speaker. Just three years ago, the environmental guru challenged an internal meeting of Wal-Mart employees to change their wasteful ways.
Now Wal-Mart wants to swap green thinking with leaders of some of the country's most high-profile businesses, including Coca-Cola Canada, Colgate-Palmolive Canada and McDonald's Canada, who are scheduled to attend the summit. Wal-Mart has even managed to draw executives from retail rivals such as Canadian Tire Corp. and Home Depot Canada, to discuss how going green is good for the planet and for business.
"It's a great platform for us to tell our story," says Tyler Elm, vice-president of sustainability at Canadian Tire who, previously, developed Wal-Mart's green strategy at its head office in Bentonville, Ark. "No one company has all the ideas on sustainability."
Canadian Tire is among companies racing to make green practices a focus of its business. For example, by switching to more efficient lighting in its stores, the retailer will save about $12-million in 2010, or 85 million kilowatts in electricity and greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Elm says.
Over all, Canadian Tire figures it can cut $55-million of annual costs in the next four years in such areas as packaging, supply chain and energy conservation, he says. Last week, the retailer issued its first quarterly report on the impact of its environmental efforts.