Think Flat

I am writing this from the 2007 GMA (Grocery Manufacturer’s Association) Executive Conference at the Greenbrier resort in W.Virginia. The conference and the resort are both part of a 100 year tradition of the grocery and food industry event graced every year by the top CXOs of the industry.

One of the sessions today : Wal-Mart Leading the Way in Going Green, was presented by Linda Dillman, EVP handling sustainability for Wal-Mart. If you remember, Linda was the CIO of Wal-Mart until a year ago when she took on this new challenging initiative.

Much has been said and done on the issue of how modern-day businesses are going green but Linda’s speech was momentous as it argued and proved at the same time that going green was not just the right thing to do, it made massive business sense with scorecards measuring the exact ROI from these efforts. Trust Wal-Mart to do that

This methodical, cold-nosed approach to a sustainability initiative is what makes it more successful. For example, Wal-Mart is working with Unilever on their laundry product “All-Small & Mighty”. Compared to the regular bottle (100 oz.) of all detergent, all small & mighty requires only half the amount of plastic and corrugated cardboard to produce. Transporting all small & mighty requires only 1/3 the amount of diesel fuel it takes to transport the 100 oz. bottle of detergent. How does all small & mighty help keep our world clean every year? Every year, all small & mighty helps save: 862,000 gallons of diesel, 50MM square feet of cardboard, 6MM pounds of plastic. And the best part: the smaller packaging helps save Wal-Mart shelf space where it can stock more products and reduce out-of-stocks and lost sales. It makes fantastic business sense to do this. Wal-Mart has numerous other such examples of business initiatives with an internal rate of return of greater than 37% (planned) and producing tremendous far-reaching benefits to the environment.

My guess is that this initiative has gathered a lot of speed because an ex-CIO is leading it. The systematic, disciplined way by which new innovative and lucrative environment-friendly initiatives are being launched is phenomenal. In the new flat-world, as I have always advocated, the CIO will continue to be the innovation champion.

The rest of the event is even more promising and I promise to write further about it.