Wal-Mart announced today the launching of an eco-labelling program that will allow customers to see the environmental footprint of the products they wish to buy. In collaboration with a consortium of universities, the giant retailer will work on issuing an index that will reflect the life cycles of its products.
The news seems to have been perceived as positive among the media and the public.
Photo by code poet. Some rights reserved (Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license.)
“Wal-Mart had been the company that the left loved to hate, because it seemed to have too much power and to use it in non socially constructive ways, squeezing suppliers or keeping wages down,” wrote Rosabeth Moss Kanter on Bloomberg.com. “Today Wal-Mart reminds us that a new kind of capitalism is possible in which big companies can use their power constructively, for the good of society and to move on issues that are still largely unaddressed by government.”
Am I the only one to be skeptical? It’s not because Wal-Mart goes green that it should be hailed as a model for a new capitalism. In my opinion, Wal-Mart is still hurting local economies as well as the urban fabric, and the eco-labelling program will not necessarily improve the food industry’s ethics. Even if we know that the food industry has some serious issues to address, we seem to keep our focus on the environmental side. The organic and local movements are so strong right now that it sometimes seems that it’s all that matters. In fact, going organic or making sure that the food was produced in an environmentally-friendly way might not be enough to improve the global food situation.
“Even if you stick an organic label on Walmart, the system remains the same,” wrote Dorothy Woodend in a review of the documentary Food Inc. in The Tyee. ” The same distribution chains, the same scale of practice, the same billions upon billions of Stonyfield plastic yogurt containers shipped around the country, all so that people can buy more shit with a clean conscience.”
When will we be ready to truly change our habits instead of reading a label for a second?
What is your farmers market for?
I just stumbled on this March/April 2009 Mother Jones article discussing the evolution of farmers markets in North America. It explains how many farmers markets bring more diversity into the range of products that are being sold in order to generate more revenue. Street performers, baked goods and restaurants are now commonly seen alongside honey and cheese producers. (My local farmers markets has acoustic bands come to play every week.)
Market managers end up allowing non-local and non-organic food to be sold so that buyers can be sure that they find all the products they need.
A farmers market in Des Moines, IA. Flickr user WindRanch, held under a Creative Commons non-commercial/attribution/no-derivative license.
I think there needs to be a debate over what we want from our farmers markets and how it’s really suppose to benefit us. Their main goal is to provide us with healthy, local produce, but we all know that in the end it’s all about building a community. Going to your local market is a weekly opportunity to have a chat with your neighbours, meet the farmers who produce the food you eat, and get the latest updates on what’s going on in the community. Going to the market is more than just going grocery shopping, it’s a social experience and a celebration. We bring in street performers and restaurants and scented candles because we want this experience to be as fulfilling as possible.
Going to your weekly farmers market is just like going to church. Both have a primary, functional role and a secondary, social role. Incidentally, my farmers markets takes place every Sunday morning. So I would argue that we should keep the street performers in while holding the market manager more accountable and being less picky about the types of products we want to be able to buy there. If there’s no local asparagus producer, then don’t bring in the giant industrial one.