Greening Walmart

Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, is often criticized for — well, being too big. Its impact on Mom and Pop shops and other small businesses in the markets it enters aside, Walmart’s environmental impact has been the subject of debate for years. On the one hand, the retail giant professes its devotion to greening itself, with initiatives like introducing environmentally friendly technology that reduces energy consumption at its stores or reducing waste production. On the other, critics are quick to point out, Walmart continues to build new stores (which causes an increase in its CO2 emissions) and, by some estimates, is still responsible for greenhouse gasses equivalent to almost half the amount produced by the entire country of France. In this infographic, we visualize the two sides of the debate.