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Walmart as a Green Business

Is the retail giant really changing, or just fooling us?

It seems counter-intuitive to many of us that follow environmental trends. Walmart is well known as the mass purveyor of cheap, imported goods that have a limited lifespan and tend to show up in landfills sooner rather than later. Personally, I don't go to Walmart expecting quality, let alone green. Are these thoughts products of a bygone time and is Walmart more responsible on the environmental side of things today?

I'm torn on the issue. My local store went through a complete remodel last summer. Skylights were installed to cut down on the lighting, and therefor energy, needs inside the stores. New products were introduced to appeal to the green crowd, while other products were phased out for the same reason. A few years ago, Walmart even began the sustainability index to rank their product suppliers in terms of how sustainable and green the products are, in theory so Walmart could stock greener products.

While I applaud Walmart on these efforts, it's not enough. Walmart isn't the only guilty business, but they tend to become the target. Actually, most businesses and consumers are guilty because we refuse to speak up. Most products come over packaged, from food to toys and electronics. Packaging is rarely recycled or recyclable. In fact, I was impressed last year when my father purchased an HP printer from Walmart and it came wrapped and cushioned in a reusable shopping bag instead of miles of foam pellets and bubble wrap. These are the changes Walmart – and every business – needs to strive for.

I'm also put off that Walmart is the only grocery store in my neck of the woods that provides no incentive for reusable shopping bags. Although I still use mine, I can't expect a 3 to 5 cent discount like I get elsewhere. Encouraging a green mindset in their customer base is another sustainable step the retail giant should take. For now, I will still limit my trips to the discount store and strive to support local business instead.

Feeding a City, One Neighborhood at a Time

The Beacon Food Forest

It's long puzzled me why we strive to install all these beautiful green spaces in our towns and cities, but then we fill them unfriendly plants. For example, a large park near my home has nothing but pine trees and ornamental shrubs. Somewhat attractive, but mainly bland. They water it constantly to keep it pretty and green, but it's only eye candy. It's a bit prettier in spring when the ornamental plums are flowering, but why didn't they plant fruit producing trees?

A neighborhood on Beacon Hill in Seattle wondered the same thing, and their answer was simple – plant a park with nothing but edible plants. The bounty would be free to whomever decided to pick it. In all other respects this is just another city park. Walking paths, a kids area, picnic places, the park has everything you would expect to find. But tucked within are community food garden plots and all the landscaping is with vegetable or fruit producing plants. Genius!

The group working on the park consulted with those in the neighborhood when planning it out and deciding what to plant. The park will be well cared for because the neighborhood residents see it as their own and will treat it with respect. The community gardening aspect, although not new, gives the public even more stake in respecting the environs of the park.

Personally, I would love to see more municipalities moving toward edible landscaping and permaculture practices. Less hunger, locally grown food and community bonding. A wonderful vision that can only lead to great things.

What's the Deal With Monsanto?

Navigating GMOs.

It's pretty hard to ignore the hype extolling the evils of the Monsanto corporation right now. You may know the company better for its product, RoundUp, which is a popular weed killer in home gardens. But why does everyone hate them so much?

The situation isn't easy or straight forward. Monsanto specializes in genetically modified organisms (GMO). Primarily, this is pest resistant seeds. This doesn't sound like a bad thing, does it? Well, their GMO items go a step further. Many of them are listed as “RoundUp Ready.” This means the seeds are modified to resist pesticide applications. You can spray an entire field of crops and wipe out the weeds without harming the food plants.

The issue with this is that weeds naturally evolve, so soon you have super-weeds that can also survive the herbicide application and are nearly impossible to wipe out. Also, you have desired crops that continue to morph, even though most are modified to be sterile (yeah, we saw how well that worked in Jurassic Park). These desirable crops then become invasive since nothing will kill them.

There are other GMO companies but Monsanto has taken the above issues a few steps further. They sue small farmers for growing their patented GMO crops illegally. Many of these farmers don't want to grow their crops, it's just that their fields have been overrun and invaded by the weedy GMO seeds.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. GMO seeds are slowly taking over our food chain. This means there is less seed diversity available now than there was 50 years ago. A super pest or disease could literally wipe out our entire food supply if we lose our seed diversity.

Business Spotlight: Seed Saver's Exchange

A beautiful thing is happening in Iowa, and has been for over 35 years. On Heritage Farm, located just outside Decorah, IA, Diane Ott Wheatly and her huband Kent are preserving our future one seed at a time. In a time when farmer's are trying to fight genetically modified fruits and vegetables and cities are cracking down on private vegetable gardens, we are even more indebted to the Wheatlys and organizations like the Seed Saver's Exchange (SSE).

SSE began with two heirloom seeds that Dianes grandparents brought with them from Bavaria. These two seeds soon grew to more than 1 million seed varieties as Diane began collecting and arranging exchanges between other heirloom plant fanatics. Not all of these seeds are vegetables – many ornamental plants and heirloom flower varieties are also preserved at Heritage Farms.

Heirloom seeds are not modified. There are many issues with GMO seeds, not least of which is that they do not generally produce viable seed or are rendered sterile on purpose. This not only makes the plants good for one season, it also limits the natural genetic pool. This means that if there is only one tomato variety available, and it doesn't produce viable seed, it can't evolve. A single virus or pest can then develop and wipe out all the tomatoes plants. No more tomatoes, ever again.

Heritage farms works to counteract this. By preserving heirloom varieties from around the world, they have an extensive bank of tomato varieties, for example, that can withstand different ailments. This protects and diversifies our food supply for when the government finally wakes up and stops giving special treatment to GMOs.

Tiny Houses

Micro-Living Laws

I've long been a fan of the tiny house movement. This movement embraces several things I love, greener lifestyles, minimizing your footprint and self-sustainability. My husband and I sometimes dream of retiring to our own tiny house on a few acres, living off grid and growing our own food. Unfortunately, many issues plague the movement, not least of all local building codes.

In cities and counties across the US building codes often require a home to be of a certain minimum square footage. The minimum varies, but in many cases it is at least 800 square feet. This means a tiny home, which generally measures 120 square feet or less, is a no-go. The origins of the laws are debated, but it's generally accepted that the main reason they exist are to preserve property values of the larger homes in the neighborhood.

A few companies, including Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed House Company, have found one way around some of these silly laws. His company mounts their homes on a trailer, so technically they don't have to follow regular building codes. These micro homes resemble a small and highly attractive cabin in every other way, though, not your typical RV or mobile home.

This works sometimes, but then you may run up against a code that doesn't allow you to park a wheeled domicile on a lot. Some mobile home parks also don't allow these tiny homes because they don't fit the “aesthetic.” (Which they don't. They are much more attractive than your standard trailer home.)

What really needs done is a change to these antiquated codes. It's up to us to do this. Vote for local representatives that support sustainable building practices. Challenge silly codes such as a minimum square footage on residential lots. Support friends and neighbors that want to build small and encourage local builder's that are sympathetic to the movement.

Athletic Women are More Successful in Business

According to Jenna Goudreau of Forbes, women who have a background in sports often perform well in the business world. Many of the values considered useful—even necessary—in business are taught through team sports, such as mental and emotional toughness. Over 80% of women in executive-level jobs played sports, and most high-earning business women identify themselves as athletic.

I played a couple of team sports in high school, and I understand what Goudreau is saying. Sports create a sense of belonging, of not wanting to let your teammates down. I imagine them as a much-watered down version of military training, teaching players to always do their best and better, and often punishing them if they do not succeed. Of course, like in the military, our own teammates help with that best; I remember how I was treated the time I ran past first base into the infield without thinking and was tagged out.

But I come from the mindset that our culture uses sports to help cultivate and embrace violence, making us even more bloodthirsty than we already are. Where else do you find drunken brawls, fist-fights both in and out of the arena or field, and people chanting mindlessly together—other than, say, a bar or a cult compound? And if this is what it takes to operate an American business today, well, no wonder there’s Occupy Wall Street.

I say we play on an entirely different field, with entirely different rules. How about being a good neighbor, supporting the community, and fostering sustainable business practices rather than exploiting resources and people? How about instead of the cutthroat policies and apathy when it comes to the worker, we instead work with a sense of compassion and empathy?

Here’s the thing: we might learn mental and emotional toughness through sports, sure. But we learn that anyway as women—as people. We learn that through dealing with our families and friends, our jobs, our homes. We certainly learn it through having children—or not having children—and being caregivers for so many people in our lives. We need to shift this definition of strength and toughness from its rigid, masculine box and open it, widen it to include the scope that is love, compassion, care, and sacrifice. Making peace and compromising, after all, are much more difficult than waging war and taking what you want. If those qualities do not encompass human strength, then nothing does.

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