Wal-Mart's Bright Idea

A retail giant flips the switch on the market for energy-saving lightbulbs.

In late 2006, Wal-Mart set a goal for compact fluorescent lightbulbs: selling an average of one bulb to each of its 100 million customers over the course of a year. If it succeeded, Wal-Mart would effectively double the annual sales of energy-efficient bulbs in the United States and create a remarkable shift in the marketplace.

Wal-Mart worked with NRDC and other environmental groups to reach its goal -- which it did, in the fall of 2007. The retailer established high-performance specifications for the bulbs to ensure customer satisfaction with the quality of the lighting and to allay concerns over the amount of mercury used in the bulbs’ manufacture. The result of Wal-Mart’s push is a market flush with high-performing, energy-saving bulbs that contain minimal amounts of mercury.

The move is simply good business, says General Electric, Wal-Mart’s supplier. “The real issue is that if we don't do it, someone else will,” GE vice president Lorraine Bolsinger told Fast Company. “It's old thinking to imagine that you can hold on to a business model and outsmart the consumer. You can't.”

Andrew Ruben, Wal-Mart's former vice president of sustainability, says, "We realized that we can influence big things—energy usage, efficiency, dependence on foreign oil. And we realized that if we're really going to move things, it's not about our direct footprint—our stores, our offices. It’s about our supply chain and our customers. So this is about selling lightbulbs, but it's far bigger. This has huge implications for the world."