US company Walmart has brought together members of its supply chain with the aim of developing a $100 million Closed Loop Fund to encourage more recycling.
Aimed at making recycling available to all Americans, the fund will invest in infrastructure projects and spur funding for transforming the recycling system in the United States.
The US retailer, which owns ASDA in the UK, hosted a number of its suppliers at its Sustainable Product Expo including the chief executives and presidents from companies such as Kellogg, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Procter & Gamble and a number of these will be supporting the fund.
Walmart will also introduce a sustainability store on its website to allow customers to specifically choose sustainable products.
Walmart Stores president and chief executive Doug McMillon said: “Walmart and our suppliers recognise that collaboration is the key to bringing sustainable solutions to all our customers. A great deal of innovative work is happening every day, but there are still too many gaps and missed opportunities. Today’s commitments are about creating real systems change from one end of the supply chain to the other – meaning how products are grown and made, how they’re transported and sold, and how we touch the lives of people along the way.”
The gathering of senior executives from major companies followed hot on the heals of the launch of Walmart’s Global Responsibility report 2014.
This showed that the company is making good progress on its aims of having zero waste to landfill from its operations by 2025. In the UK and Japan more than 90 per cent of materials are diverted, in the US it is 81 per cent while Canada and Mexico are both diverting more than 70 per cent.
Walmart has also succeeded in reducing its product packaging by 5 per cent compared to a 2008 baseline and is working with suppliers to use 3 billion pounds (136,000 tonnes) of recycled content in packaging by 2020.
