Environment

Packaging suppliers that perform well under a new scheme from the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, to reduce packaging can expect to win more business.

Mary Mehigan, general manager for legal and external affairs at Asda, Wal-Mart's UK business, said better suppliers would "always get more business" and that a "healthy competitive supply chain" was central to the company's growth strategy.

Wal-Mart claims the scorecard will help improve packaging design and manufacture as well as help conserve resources, and will allow suppliers to evaluate themselves against their peers, based on specific metrics (see below).

It aims to reduce packaging across its global supply chain by 5% by 2013.

During a one-year trial, starting in February, Wal-Mart will share the scorecard information with more than 60,000 of its suppliers.

In February 2008, it will start using the scorecard to measure each firm's ability to use less packaging, more effective materials, and source these materials more efficiently relative to other suppliers.

In the UK, Asda is currently working through how the scorecard will cover its supply base. Mehigan said the scorecard would be rolled out to suppliers imminently.


Scorecard composition
15%: GHG/CO2 per ton of production
15%: material value
15%: product/package ratio
15%: cube utilisation
10%: transportation
10%: recycled content
10%: recovery value
5%: renewable energy
5%: innovation