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Wal-Mart Pack Scorecard goes live today
February 1, 2008
Wal-Mart buyers officially begin using its packaging scorecard today to rate suppliers on their progress toward sustainable packaging. But depending on how you count it, only half of the SKUs the Big Box retailing giant sells have been entered into the system so far.According to the Flexible Packaging Association’s Sustainability Update, Wal-Mart is unsure of the exact number of current SKUs they carry or of the exact number of vendors. It’s been estimated that they carried up to 200,000 SKUs from 46,000 suppliers. But in a Wal-Mart press release, as of Jan. 30, only 97,000 products had been entered into the scorecard by 6,371 distinct vendors. [As if 97,000 can somehow be termed “only.”]
Brand owners of products sold at Wal-Mart are responsible for filling out the scorecard, but may rely on packaging suppliers for information about transportation distance, material structures, recyclability and additional scorecard support, FPA says.
Fortunately, for all concerned—CPGs, package printers, converters and upstream material providers, the Wal-Mart scorecard is meant to be an evolving thing with continual updates and new areas added as new information becomes available and pertinent.
Now, it remains to be seen just how important this whole adventure will be as Wal-Mart buyers start using the tool when actually making their purchasing decisions. I look forward to learning about the first “success story” of somebody’s sustainable package being prominently bought in bulk by Wal-Mart. If it's yours, give me a call.
Posted by Mark Spaulding on February 1, 2008 | Comments (0)