How Walmart Is Changing China

Walmart is working with China to identify and reduce waste in packaging, shipping and energy use, explains China expert Orville Schell in an article for the Atlantic. Any cost-saving idea can be multiplied among thousands of suppliers, thousands of stores, millions of employees and shoppers. Since 2005, Walmart and China “are engaging in a bold experiment in consumer behavior modification, market economics, and environmental stewardship,” writes Schell. Both company and country are highly centralized, promoting a service-oriented work ethic as a way of life, simultaneously rejecting dissent while appreciating innovation. Green initiatives align with China’s rapid economic growth and worries about food safety. “[T]he commercial proselytizing by Walmart managers about the need to respond to consumer demands may end up changing China far more than previous generations of Western Christian missionaries, educators, or advocates of democracy and human rights ever did,” Schell concludes. Yet he questions lessons that emphasize consumerism. “The bitter reality is that even if unrestrained consumerism becomes less environmentally destructive per unit of production than it was in the past, it is still unsustainable in the long run.” – YaleGlobal