What’s the Score?

As they say, you can’t tell the players without a Scorecard!

The company created a real buzz for RFID a few years ago, when it announced that it was mandating the use of this technology from its suppliers. Although this effort has faded from the limelight and has been largely redefined in scope, RFID technology received more attention during a two-year period than it would have gotten in a decade. RFID technology still has a ways to go in terms of reliability and cost, but Wal-Mart’s initiative probably did a lot to advance its development. 

Before the dust had a chance to settle on its RFID efforts, Wal-Mart took on another noteworthy initiative—sustainability. In September 2006, the company announced that it would institute using a Packaging Scorecard with its suppliers to help the company meet its commitment to reduce the use of packaging materials across its global supply chain by 5 percent by 2013.   

The Scorecard, unveiled at Pack Expo 2006, is based on metrics for how packaging impacts sustainability factors throughout many aspects of the entire supply chain. They were developed over many months by the Packaging Sustainable Value Network, a group of 200 suppliers, experts, and other Wal-Mart stakeholders. These metrics and their Scorecard weighting factors are: greenhouse gases/CO₂ per ton of production (15 percent); material value (15); product/package ratio (15); cube utilization (a measure of storage efficiency in warehousing and shipping trailors/containers, 15 percent); transportation (10); recycled content (10); recovery value (10); renewable -energy (5); and innovation (5). 

The Scorecard has been in various stages of use and implementation since its introduction. Even before it officially went online in February 2008, Wal-Mart reported that more than 97,000 products had been entered into the Scorecard by more than 6,300 vendors.

Diamond Packaging (www.diamondpackaging.com) and CardPak (www.cardpak.com) are just two package printers that have been actively involved with the Scorecard and have been experiencing its impact firsthand. 

Diamond Packaging has been proactive on the sustainability front for a number of years now, having committed to the use of renewable wind energy, and started a program called the greenbox initiative to develop and implement sustainable packaging solutions for its customers. 

Dennis Bacchetta is director of marketing for -Diamond Packaging. Although he believes that sustainability has gained a great deal of traction from “a confluence of legislative, corporate, and consumer interest,” he also says that the Wal-Mart Scorecard has done its part in raising the stakes.

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