Thinking Ethics: Sustainability index

About this blog

Thinking Ethics was a project launched in Geneva to foster the debate about ethics. A few friends, fed up with only reading about abuses in the media, decided to hold a forward-looking seminar on five subjects: ethics and performance, ethics and knowledge, ethics and consciousness, ethics and disobedience and ethics in real time. If moral has to do with right and wrong, then ethics is its application in society. We believe that people need to talk about the subject to determine the level of ethics they want. The book Thinking Ethics, a result of the seminar, is to start the discussion. This blog is a contribution to the conversation.
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September 28, 2009

Sustainability index

How green are the products we buy ? The good news is that a sustainability index is in the making. Walmart is sending a 15 question survey to all of its suppliers in order to create an index. They hope to share it by creating a common database.

Surprisins that Walmart is taking the lead on this - but maybe not. They are moving from a PR save exercice to incorporating sustainability into the culture, and now they are extending it to their suppliers (this is a first step in that direction). The critics on their sustainability report were a bit hard - apparently they put everything in there but the kitchen sink - 120 pages ! Lacking somewhat in focus. But watch this space - I think they are moving towards a new business model...

Good article on the sustainability index on Globalethics.org's Ethics Newsline here.

Posted by Beth Krasna on September 28, 2009 at 05:26 PM in Business | Permalink

Tags: globalethics.org, green products, sustainability index, Walmart