A lot of places were commenting about a press release put out by the good folks at Wal-Mart letting people know that they are jumping on the sustainable, green, environmentally friendly, jewelry trend.. My first thought was, really?? You mean after all these years of trashing the environment by pushing their products made in places like China, now they suddenly see the light and are going to try to be more green?? Really??

I’ve commented in the past that a great many companies are using the environment as a marketing tool.. This is no different.. I believe that if Wal-Mart thought that they could make just as much money just ignoring the environment, they would.. But in today’s marketplace it’s important to at least pretend that you care about the environment.. If Wal-Mart had being good to the world as a core value then this would not be news, it would be an announcement from them welcoming everyone else to where they already were..

I’ll be more interested in seeing where they are in two years, and if they are planning to allow independent oversight of their process.. Or even more interesting, will they produce records of just how many of their customers actually use their new website to track their jewelry..

For the record, here is that website, it took a lot longer to find than I would have thought. This should be front and center, instead the link to it was buried 3 pages deep on their website.

http://www.loveearthinfo.com/home.html