It's been almost three years since Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott busted out of the defensive bunkers and went on the green offensive in his 21st Century Leadership speech, setting the ambitious goals of all renewable energy, zero waste, and sustainable products. Then, as now, the greening of Wal-Mart receives a bifurcated response: "Wal-Mart's immense influence can muscle the global economy toward sustainability"; or "Wal-Mart's inherently unsustainable business model (poor wages/benefits, union-busting, expansive siting, etc…) exposes its environmental initiatives as greenwash."

On the former front, this week Wal-Mart unveiled a new jewelry line (called "Love, Earth"), the first to be completely traceable from mine to store. For example, Wal-Mart partnered with Newmont to supply gold from its Nevada mines. Last year, Wal-Mart joined Oxfam America’s No Dirty Gold campaign, and going forward, the company's Jewelry Sustainable Value Network (one of 14) seeks to eventually hold all of the gold, silver, and diamonds sold to Wal-Mart's sustainability standards, which include environmental, human rights, and community criteria. For a sense of the scope of this challenge, the retailer aims to have at least 10 percent of its jewelry achieve these standards by 2010.

Flipping this statistic on its head exposes the core dilemma: Wal-Mart currently operates in a context that is more than 90 percent unsustainable (when it comes to jewelry – and likewise for many other products.) Which begs the question: is a system that's almost completely unsustainable worth fixing, or is it better to simply abandon the Wal-Mart model in favor of a more functional system?

Wal-Mart has clearly anticipated this solution, and is aligning its operations with models acknowledged for their more inherent sustainability. For example, Wal-Mart is the largest seller of organic produce in the world, as The Meatrix Executive Producer Diane Hatz points out in response to the recent dialogue between Whole Foods and Wal-Mart at the LOHAS conference. "And industrial organic or not, that's millions and millions of acres of soil not being injected with chemical fertilizers and tons of produce not being sprayed with persistent chemical pesticides," Hatz writes. "And that's a good thing."

Wal-Mart has also become the nation's largest purchaser of local produce, according to Grist food writer Tom Philpott. However, he questions how Wal-Mart defines "local" (apparently statewide, be it as small as Vermont or as huge as Texas) and whether the company will adopt a "truly sustainable" model of local sourcing that "works for mid-sized farms," or "will it revert to its traditional bare-fisted, bully-the-supplier tactics?"

Shareholder activist Conrad MacKerron similarly questions the supply chain implications of Wal-Mart's greening – especially for workers. As with its usual practice, Wal-Mart is primarily passing along costs – including the cost of greening – to its suppliers. Who will in most instances pass along these costs to their workers. "Is it too much to expect Wal-Mart to deal with labor and green issues at once?" MacKerron asks. The answer to this question will determine whether Wal-Mart's greening is truly sustainable, or greenwash.

This article was written by CSRwire contributor Bill Baue.

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