[Editor's note: This article originally appeared on ICIS.com, and is reprinted here with permission.]

Walmart's sustainability goals might mean an added cost burden all the way up to the chemical supply chain.

But so far, the chemical industry as a whole is giving its approval to the U.S. retailing giant's various green initiatives.

On top of the U.S.-based hypermarket chain's Packaging Scorecard program, which started in early 2008, and its Sustainability Product Index, which started in July 2009, Walmart announced on February 25 its goal of eliminating 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015.

The emissions reductions will come from any phase of its targeted product life cycles, including raw material sourcing, product and packaging manufacturing, transportation, customer use and end-of-life disposal. Walmart will focus on product categories with the highest embedded carbon footprint.

The retailer says it will not force its suppliers to cut their emissions. Walmart, with $405 billion (€304 billion) in fiscal 2010 sales, has more than 100,000 suppliers worldwide. Their carbon footprint, according to Walmart, is many times larger than the company's operational footprint, and represents a more meaningful opportunity to reduce emissions.

"In many cases, our suppliers already have their own good ideas in cutting their emissions," Jim Stanway, Walmart's senior director of global supplier initiatives, noted during Walmart's February press conference.

"We will be looking at a life cycle analysis of some products, but not all. There is certainly no requirement of all products to have a carbon footprint produced. Some companies may benefit from performing footprint analysis at a corporate level or even a product level, regardless of this program because of the insight it provides," he added.

Walmart is collaborating with various U.S. groups such as the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), as well as consultancies ClearCarbon of the U.S. and the global PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Applied Sustainability Center (ASC) at the University of Arkansas, to implement the program. The groups will identify projects, quantify reductions, engage suppliers and ensure proper procedures will be followed for each GHG reduction claim.

"We are going to do this in a way that saves the most money possible in a transparent way," said Walmart vice president Leslie Dach. "This is going to be measurable and we will be held accountable for it."

SUPPLY CHAIN REACTION

At the end of the day, Walmart said its suppliers as well as customers would both benefit from cost reductions through sustainability.

"Sustainability and lowering costs are totally aligned," said Lee Scott, Walmart's chairman of the executive committee, during a question-and-answer session at the Fortune Brainstorm Green 2010 conference on April 14, in Laguna Niguel, Calif., U.S.

"We are looking at sustainability from a business standpoint - not from a standpoint of altruism. In fact, a lot of our suppliers are already way ahead of us when it comes to implementing sustainability," he noted.

Trade group the American Chemistry Council (ACC) agrees, and points to some of its own members' initiatives in reducing emissions and energy use - both from the use of their products and in their operations.

"More than seven years ago, ACC companies pledged to lower GHG intensity by 18% by 2012 using 1990 as a base-reporting year," says Jennifer Killinger, senior director of sustainability and public outreach at the plastics division of the ACC. "The industry has exceeded that initial commitment and has reduced carbon intensity by 36% - double its original pledge. We also found, through a recently commissioned international carbon life cycle analysis study, that GHG emission savings enabled by the chemical industry outweigh the industry's emissions more than two-fold."

U.S.-based producer Dow Chemical points out that Walmart's sustainability goal is in alignment with its own objectives of decreasing its environmental footprint and maximizing product performance throughout the supply chain.

"Given the challenges associated with running a global chemical manufacturing supply chain, we have been focused on sustainability for a long time - not just our own but also how we address sustainability with our customers and our customers' customers," says Anne Wallin, director of sustainable chemistry and life cycle assessment at Dow Chemical.

"In fact, we have been very active in a number of sustainability efforts with Walmart to help them achieve their objectives." One example, she notes, is Dow's role in the development of Walmart's packaging scorecard, which aims to globally reduce the retailer's packaging by 5% by 2013.

The scorecard is a measurement tool that allows suppliers to evaluate themselves relative to other suppliers, based on specific metrics that include, among other elements, GHG emissions, recyclability, innovation, product-to-packaging ratio, space utilization, transportation-related emissions, amount of renewable energy used to make the packaging, and material value.

"Through our work with the ACC, we were the first industry to supply complete life cycle inventory data for our products to support the scorecard initiative," says Wallin.