VANCOUVER, Canada — Walmart Canada recently launched a website it hopes will eventually become the go-to resource for green business best practices in the country.

Case studies from companies such as Nestle Water, Stonyfield Farms, Tetra Pak, SC Johnson and Kimblerly-Clark can be found at ShareGreen.ca, which invites visitors to share their own success stories for energy, waste and material management, green products and solution, and green employee engagement.

Walmart Canada announced the website's launch at its Green Business Summit held in Vancouver last week, where it also unveiled plans to extend its Sustainable Product Index initiative to the country. The company will begin surveying its suppliers this summer on their social and environmental efforts, with plans to eventually rate the sustainability of its products.

So far, ShareGreen offers case studies for the food and beverage, manufacturing, professional services, resource extraction and retail industries, with plans to add materials for the government, tourism and transportation sectors.

In the archives is the story of how Pepsi moved toward self-manufacturing in order to reduce its carbon footprint and reduce fuel costs. The company set a goal of moving toward self-manufacturing by 2010 in order to curtail shipments from various suppliers around the country of empty PET bottles, which created an army of trucks "transporting air."

The company began with a successful self-manufacturing pilot program in Winnipeg in 2000 that trimmed fuel consumption by 90 percent. Since then, it has converted all of its Canadian facilities with self-manufacturing capabilities, except for one in Vancouver, which will be completed this year. It estimates it will see a positive return on its $65 million investment, in addition saving 16 million liters of fuel and six million liters of water annually.

Another case study told the story of how SC Johnson worked to engage employees at its Canadian headquarters in order to boost retention and improve morale. The company first expanded the role of a volunteer committee that previously handled charitable donations to look for ways to strengthen local families and communities, in addition to giving employees the opportunity to make a difference at work and in their communities. The result was a series of environmental awareness events and initiatives, as well as paid time off for volunteer activities for interested employees.

To further engage its workers, SC Johnson also introduced a "Waste Free Office" initiative that sought to improve its waste diversion rate from 78 percent to 95 percent.

The company met its waste diversion goal, while employees recorded 2,500 volunteer hours.