On Monday (July 26th), Seventh Generation and Walmart announced that they are forming a long-term strategic partnership. The goal is to make sustainable living more accessible to consumers across the U.S. This will include shelf space (physical and virtual) for Seventh Generation products at 1,500 Walmart stores and on Walmart.com.
This is an interesting partnership, especially considering that Seventh Generation Founder Jeffrey Hollender has said numerous times in the past that “hell would freeze over” before he would do business with Walmart.
To my knowledge, hell has not frozen over yet.
Yet Hollender makes a strong case as to why this partnership makes sense in 2010: “Walmart can move quicker than probably any government on the planet…. What I realized is if you could get Walmart moving quicker and more aggressively in this direction, we’d be able to solve the challenges we’re facing much more quickly and much more efficiently.” What Jeffrey may have not said publicly, but perhaps learned from other leaders of “green” companies, is that Walmart isn’t always the evil retailer, especially if you’re providing a product that affluent customers want. (For example, Gary Hirshberg at Stonyfield Farms remarked positively on their Walmart relationship at the Conscious Capitalism conference at Bentley University in late May.)
Nevertheless, judging by the reactions of Seventh Generation’s 91,000+ Facebook fans, there are mixed feelings about Seventh Gen’s decision.
One person wrote, “I’m very disappointed that you’ll be selling your products in Walmart. I will no longer purchase any of your products if you support a company that doesn’t support its employees.”
Another fan posted in response, “This does suck but at least the people who already shop at Walmart will now have access to greener products. Maybe the more green companies are playing an important role in Walmart stores, the more influence customers like us will have in demanding better working conditions/benefits for their employees.”
Walmart is undoubtedly a powerful machine. Only 21 countries have a GDP higher than Walmart’s annual revenues. In fact, Walmart is financially bigger than Sweden, Norway, Argentina, South Africa, and oil rich Saudi Arabia.
Personally, I am not a Walmart shopper. I did go into a Walmart on Sunday, but it was the first time in probably 3 years. I admit that Walmart has made some major changes in the last few years to improve their environmental profile (in order to cut costs and also appeal to a more affluent & green shopper). That being said, they have a long way to go with how they treat their employees, especially as their business model built around being low cost appears to be incongruent with treating employees as a precious resource.
One thing that is hard to debate about Walmart is that they know how to make a buck; they have increased profits every year for the last 10 years to over $14.3 billion for 2009. And Walmart knows that natural cleaning products are hot. The category has tripled in size since 2005.
So, if Seventh Generation was not going to sell its products to Walmart, Walmart would surely find another “natural” or “green” cleaning product company. It would likely be a company that is not 100% natural and does not disclose all ingredients to consumers.
I suspect Seventh Generation will profit financially from the Walmart partnership. Good for them. This will allow them to continue to invest more money in being at the cutting edge of green cleaners, laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, diapers, baby wipes, tampons, recycled toilet paper, tissues, paper towels, etc.
This will end up benefiting us Seventh Generation loyalists that happen to buy their products at somewhere other than Walmart.
That is my opinion; I would love to hear yours.
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P.S. This news made me think a lot about Atayne. I have said many times that Atayne will never be sold in mass retailers, including stores like Sports Authority and Dick’s. The jury is still out on this one…
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I always find the turn of phrase about not doing something until hell freezes over as an odd one, since the center of the inferno is a big frozen lake where those that betray their masters are entombed in the ice to varying degrees (depending upon how severe their betrayal was.)
As for Wal-Mart, I don’t shop there. I don’t like spending my money with them because of their overly aggressive price-cutting, which is great for them as it provides them with the all mighty buck, but puts a lot of local competitors out of business because they can’t find a way to compete. They also get a lot of tax breaks that I don’t think they deserve or need and would rather see that revenue flowing towards their local economies. (Building their distribution center in central Maine comes to mind.)