Wal-Mart Hints at Green Building Strategy

The Web site www.CNNMoney.com has reported that the board chairman of Wal-Mart, Bentonville, Ark., has commented that the company is planning to build its stores with more attention paid to recycled-content building materials.

According to a news item on the Web site, when speaking at a “Brainstorm Green” conference hosted by Fortune magazine, Wal-Mart chairman Lee Scott said the global retailer is studying ways to build stores “made of materials that easily revert back to the Earth.”

The CNNMoney.com reporter writes that Scott did not elaborate on the plan, but that a Wal-Mart spokesperson contacted later said the retailer “is also looking to use more recycled materials in the construction process.”

The corporate spokesperson cited store baseboards made partly from old diapers, steel containing recycled components and concrete composed of 20 percent fly ash as examples of recycled-content materials already being used.

The attention from Wal-Mart to recycled-content building materials would fit in with other strategies that the company has pursued, including the recycling its packaging scrap and excess inventory with a target of generating zero waste at its stores and the use of renewable energy,.

According to CNNMoney.com, in his remarks at the conference, board chairman Scott credited Wal-Mart employees for helping enact the sustainability policies, saying, “There were a lot of young people who were wondering when we were going to do things differently.”