News

Wal-Mart buyers will officially start using the retailer's packaging scorecard from tomorrow (1 February) as a tool for making purchasing decisions and rating suppliers' progress on developing sustainable packaging.

The world's largest retailer has trialled the scorecard with suppliers since February 2007, and there are now more than 97,000 products, from 6,371 different vendors, entered into the scheme.

Matt Kistler, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of sustainability, said the scorecard would help the firm to make decisions that were "good for business, our customers and the environment". The company's goal is a 5% reduction in packaging by 2013.

The scorecard evaluates a pack's performance against nine criteria, including greenhouse gas emissions and product-to-package ratio, and suppliers in each product category can view how they rate against competitors.

Wal-Mart has said it will continue to verify the methodology behind the calculations during 2008, with a view to possibly refining them.

Asda, Wal-Mart's UK arm, has said it wants to roll out a UK version of the scorecard from early 2009.

The multiple has also claimed that packaging reduction would enable it to reduce the price of its own-brand products by a total of £10m in 2008.

Asda chief executive Andy Bond said that "every penny" saved as a result of packaging reduction would be passed back to customers, as part of its Green Rollbacks scheme, announced today (31 January).

Asda's packaging team will review all of its own-label products – some 500 lines – and, from May, the supermarket will lower the price of those goods that have had their packaging reduced.

The Green Rollbacks programme is part of the commitment to reduce own-label packaging by 25% by the end of this year.

Bond said: "Asda believes that going green should reduce the cost of living, not increase it."