A few days ago, I posted about Walmart and Earth Hour 2008. I encouraged you to write in to Walmart to encourage their participation in this event.
Today, I received a response to my initial letter to Walmart; this is what it says:
Thank you for your message.
Dear Rick ,
Sam Walton built Wal-Mart on a very simple belief–the customer is the boss. That means we are always looking for better ways to serve the people who shop at Wal-Mart. Each comment, concern and suggestion is very important because it gives us the opportunity to improve our overall service.
Rest assured that your message has been forwarded to the proper division where it will be reviewed and carefully considered.
Thank you for your observations. It is customers like you who help us continue to offer everyday low prices and friendly service.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
I hate to say it, but that doesn’t appear very personal to me; I’m most struck by the fact that they spoke to me as if I were simply a customer writing in, despite the fact I did mention my position within the company in my letter to them. Hmm, I’m going to have to get more creative. Tomorrow, I’m going to email various higher-ups from work. I’m technically the “Personal Sustainability Project captain” of my store, so this whole Earth Hour thing could get some attention in my area, but I have a feeling it’s going to have to be a national thing or nothing at all.
If you haven’t already, please write in to Walmart (for details, see my earlier post) and encourage them to participate. This one thing could cause such a huge ripple affect across not only the industry but the nation as well. One of the biggest obstacles I’ve seen to living environmentally conscience lives is that far too few people and companies are living responsibly in a visible way. If no one seems to be making a difference, the attitude of “Well, what good can I do?” easily creeps up.
Write Walmart. Tell them to turn off their lights for one hour. If they truly believe in what they’ve been saying about wanting to help the environment, they should jump at this chance to make such a huge impact!
If the city of Sydney, Australia, can do it; so can Walmart. So can America!