Along his path to a more sustainable
life, C. Douglas McMillon got some
basic insight about how important it was to change his ways. McMillon, president and CEO for Sam’s Club and executive vice president for its parent company,
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., got the wisdom from
his teenage son during a conversation
about environmental changes that the
retail juggernaut was considering.
“He said, ‘We’re going to need this planet,
Dad, duh. You should be working on this,’”
McMillon says.
Duh, indeed, he thought as he began helping Sam’s and Wal-Mart’s push to start
Sustainability 360, a companywide initiative
promoting sustainability. The company
started off small but used each change as a
steppingstone to get others involved. Famed
green activist Adam Werbach was brought
in to help navigate companywide changes,
while leadership made an effort to celebrate
those already making a difference, giving
Wal-Mart’s and Sam’s 2 million employees
opportunity to see how easy it can be.
“You start by telling stories,” McMillon
says. “When someone steps up, you bring
them up on stage and say, ‘Look at what
this person has done.’ Then people start
asking, ‘What can I do differently?’ And we
make it as easy as possible.”
Beyond company goals for buying more
sustainable products, reducing packaging
and changing the energy output of stores,
senior leaders asked those interested in
making a change to join in at an individual
level with a personal sustainability project.
The PSP can be small, but with more than
520,000 employees on board since its July
2006 inception, it’s making a difference. With
a company magazine that promotes daily
changes employees can make, like switching
to compact fluorescent light bulbs, and buttons employees get for making the effort,
momentum is pushing the platform along.
“I had a person tell me, ‘I’m turning off the
water when I brush my teeth,’ and I said,
‘Great, way to go,’” McMillon says. “When
you can change the course of a lot of people, you can make a difference.”
The thing that he hammers home is the
changes are both voluntary and realistic.
“I don’t know that we’re going to get
everybody,” he says. “But, over time, I’d like to think that you’ll influence a majority
to do things differently.
“It’s got to be something you personally
can do. If we ask you to create a situation
where Wal-Mart is powered by 100 percent
renewable energy, and you’re the club manager, there is only so much you can do. But
you can say, ‘We used to put shrink-wrap
around the palates, and we were paying
someone to come and get that. Today, we
sell it, we recognize the value, and we’re
keeping it out of the landfill.’”
McMillon says that difference-making
ability is helping build a more involved
employee base.
“It’s helping attract and retain people, especially younger people,” he says. “They want
to make a difference. You might be in college
today, and in less than a year, you could be a
buyer, and you get to implement what I just
asked you without a manual. You can say,
‘I’m not going to buy any more of this item
until we talk about the recycling issue.’”
McMillon also sees the company’s efforts
producing positive effects with consumers.
During a recent tour of several Sam’s locations, he pulled up a chair in one club’s café
and watched people notice signs about the
company’s projects.
“They were grabbing family members
and saying, ‘Look at that, they did this, they
did that,’” he says. “We are going to see
sales growth because as customers
become more aware of this issue, our packaging will be more relevant to them.”
It hasn’t been long since H. Lee Scott Jr.,
Wal-Mart’s president and CEO, asked a
small group of executives to start thinking
about sustainability. Thinking back to that
meeting and the talking-to from his son,
McMillon says you have to start these conversations at the top and realize people are
interested in making these changes, but
they just aren’t sure how to begin.
“I’m an example of somebody who was
not thinking about this, but when asked to
think about it, you change,” he says.
“Executives are people, too, and they have
families. It’s not that you have to win an
intellectual debate. You fuel that with financial numbers, like the income from recycling, and now your interests are aligned.”
HOW TO REACH: Sam’s Club, www.samsclub.com or (888)
746-7726