Recently the Aspen Institute honored Walmart with the 2009 Corporate Efficiency Award. The announcement was met with grumblings from a room packed with environmentalists and energy pundits.

 

For over a decade, Walmart has been synonymous with everything not green. But a few years back former Sierra Club director Adam Werbach jumped on board with the marketing/branding goliath Saatchi & Saatchi. Their goal ... to make corporate America go green.

 

Their first and largest challenge was Walmart. With over 66,000 suppliers, 3,400 retail outlets (collectively equivalent to one Manhattan) and 100 million annual visits, Walmart is both the largest consumer and the largest distributor of goods on the planet. 

 

But it does look like Werbach and crew have managed to slowly turn the Walmart titanic in a new and more sustainable direction. I recently had the opportunity to meet Walmart's head of corporate communications, and she handed me a DVD with a pretty remarkable 90-minute film made by Saatchi that documents Walmart's new end-to-end approach.

 

I uploaded the intro video above. The film explores the life cycle of each product -- taking, making, moving, buying, using and reusing. It's definitely one of the best explanations of supply chain that I've seen and thought it was worth a post.

 

The film was really created for Walmart's 66,000 suppliers and their millions of minions. But you can also purchase a copy for $1 online or watch all the segments for free on Facebook.