A study conducted by economists Art Carden of Rhodes College and Charles Courtemanche of the University of North Carolina indicate that, contrary to popular conception, the presence of Wal-Mart in many communities may actually combat obesity. While potato chips and dip are cheaper at Wal-Mart than at most competitors, so too are healthy produce and protein.

The study compared the reported body mass index (BMI) and obesity rates from neighborhoods with and without Wal-Mart Supercenters, which offer full grocery service. While there was an increase in obesity, perhaps because of low prices, in many markets, the study found that when Wal-Mart opens stores in inner-city food deserts, where the competition is mainly fast food and convenience stores, the result was a lowering of the obesity rate.

Big-box retailers in general tend to lower obesity rates in poorer neighborhoods, perhaps because they increase the availability of fresh, cheap, home-cooked food that competes effectively against the dollar menus of fast-food outlets. They also provide employment opportunities, which increases access to health care and low-price medications.

Whole Foods Stores and Bed, Bath & Beyond have both advised suppliers to avoid using fuel derived from Canadian tar sands, one of the largest reservoirs of petrochemical products in the world. Both chains are reportedly reacting to advice from ForestEthics, an environmental group, that fuel from tar sands contains more carbon than fuel that is manufactured from conventional crude oil.

According to Financial Times, Whole Foods has shifted its business from Marathon Oil, which uses oil sands fuel, to CountryMark, which does not.

Both chains said that they are making the moves to reduce their carbon footprints.

Minneapolis-based Target Stores has eliminated farmed salmon from its fresh, frozen and smoked fish departments and replaced the product with line-caught Alaskan salmon. It will replace farmed salmon in its sushi products by the end of the year.

The Marine Stewardship Council considers line-caught salmon a sustainable resource, while some salmon farms create pollution, disease in the fisheries that can spread to wild species when farmed salmon escape, and expansion of dangerous parasites.

“Target strives to be a responsible steward of the environment, while also providing our guests with the highest-quality food choices,” said Greg Duppler, senior vice president, merchandising, Target.  “Our guests now have an array of sustainable seafood choices at great prices.”

“Target’s decision to source sustainable wild-caught salmon, instead of farmed, will have a real impact in the marketplace – and ultimately, on the health of our oceans,” said Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which rates seafood products for their sustainability.  “Increasing the demand for seafood from ocean-friendly sources, like this Monterey Bay Aquarium ‘Best Choice,’ charts us on a course not only to protect our oceans, but to improve fishing and fish-farming practices around the world.”

Target operates 1,740 stores in 49 states.

Kohl’s Department Stores, Menomonee Falls, WI, has passed PepsiCo to become the nation’s No. 2 user of green power, and is closing in on U.S. leader Intel Corp. Whole Foods Markets is came in at No. 4.

Kohl’s purchases or produces 1,367,376,000 kWh of green power on an annual basis, 100 percent of its power usage, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The company, a major retailer of women’s and men’s apparel, home fashions, jewelry and shoes, operates 1,059 stores in 49 states. It is a major purchaser of landfill gas from Waste Management and wind-generated power from a windmill farm in Texas. It generates solar power at 80 of its newer stores and at its distribution centers.

Other top retailers in green power usage include Wal-Mart Stores, Starbucks and Staples.

Kohl's has been a member of EPA's Green Power Partnership since 2006 and was named a 2009 Green Power Partner of the Year. Kohl's was also honored in 2007 and 2008 with Green Power Leadership Awards for green power purchase and on-site generation. In addition, the company's green initiatives were recognized in 2009 with an EPA SmartWay Excellence award and a ranking of No. 1 in retail on Newsweek's Green Rankings.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Bentonville, Ark., has unveiled a new program called Heirloom Agriculture that will encourage smaller farmers within a 12-hour drive of the company’s many distribution centers to grow specialized produce rather than commodity crops.

At present, these farmers can’t compete with year-round industrialized powerhouses such as California, Florida and Mexico. The result is that even in-season, consumers in the northern states rely on fruits and vegetables that have been shipped thousands of miles.

The program, reported in Atlantic Magazine on Feb. 12, follows a 2006 initiative to acquire regional meat products, particularly sausages and other processed meat products. Wal-Mart met with dozens of regional processors to regionalize its selection, aiming to both appeal to local tastes and to offer a fresher and less-processed product.

Despite the name, Wal-Mart is not actually looking for heirloom products, older and less-productive (but often tastier) produce strains. It is instead trying to bring back the “heirloom” independent farmer growing local and popular produce.

Most farmers in the Midwest are referred to as “high-tech sharecroppers,” growing corn, wheat and soybeans for massive corporations, such as Monsanto and ADM, who lock in a price and then market the grains as their own.

Wal-Mart Stores, however, has the financial clout to make crops such as Michigan peaches, Oklahoma corn and others financially viable for larger growers. Small growers can survive on farmers markets and roadside stands, but Wal-Mart can convince larger farms to enter the market.

This is very good news for the nation’s farmers and for consumers as well. Farmers can plant a varied suite of crops and if one fails, can quickly replant a fall crop to compensate. They will no longer have to rely on the results of one or two crops, which can fail totally due to weather. And they have a guaranteed customer; a farmers market on a rainy day can mean wasted effort and spoiled food.

Wal-Mart has been slammed for offering substandard meat products (and hammered by grocery chains, which offer USDA Choice and Prime cuts, while Wal-Mart generally offers Select cuts) and its strategy has been to offer the same produce as competitors, but claiming that its distribution process, the best in the world, means fresher food. And it’s dirt cheap.

If the chain can offer local food, it will gain a significant advantage. That will force its competitors to start offering more local food.

If you have ever eaten an August Michigan peach, you will understand what that advantage is. For consumers, this is a big win.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Bentonville, Ark., has unveiled a new program called Heirloom Agriculture that will encourage smaller farmers within a 12-hour drive of the company’s many distribution centers to grow specialized produce rather than commodity crops.

At present, these farmers can’t compete with year-round industrialized powerhouses such as California, Florida and Mexico. The result is that even in-season, consumers in the northern states rely on fruits and vegetables that have been shipped thousands of miles.

The program, reported in Atlantic Magazine on Feb. 12, follows a 2006 initiative to acquire regional meat products, particularly sausages and other processed meat products. Wal-Mart met with dozens of regional processors to regionalize its selection, aiming to both appeal to local tastes and to offer a fresher and less-processed product.

Despite the name, Wal-Mart is not actually looking for heirloom products, older and less-productive (but often tastier) produce strains. It is instead trying to bring back the “heirloom” independent farmer growing local and popular produce.

Most farmers in the Midwest are referred to as “high-tech sharecroppers,” growing corn, wheat and soybeans for massive corporations, such as Monsanto and ADM, who lock in a price and then market the grains as their own.

Wal-Mart Stores, however, has the financial clout to make crops such as Michigan peaches, Oklahoma corn and others financially viable for larger growers. Small growers can survive on farmers markets and roadside stands, but Wal-Mart can convince larger farms to enter the market.

This is very good news for the nation’s farmers and for consumers as well. Farmers can plant a varied suite of crops and if one fails, can quickly replant a fall crop to compensate. They will no longer have to rely on the results of one or two crops, which can fail totally due to weather. And they have a guaranteed customer; a farmers market on a rainy day can mean wasted effort and spoiled food.

Wal-Mart has been slammed for offering substandard meat products (and hammered by grocery chains, which offer USDA Choice and Prime cuts, while Wal-Mart generally offers Select cuts) and its strategy has been to offer the same produce as competitors, but claiming that its distribution process, the best in the world, means fresher food. And it’s dirt cheap.

If the chain can offer local food, it will gain a significant advantage. That will force its competitors to start offering more local food.

If you have ever eaten an August Michigan peach, you will understand what that advantage is. For consumers, this is a big win.

After two years of design, experimentation, fund-raising and building, the University of Arizona's Solar Decathlon team has completed construction of its 800-square-foot solar-powered house on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Professor Steven Chu believes painting houses and roads white could significantly reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Starbucks has taken a lot of flack in the past few years for its non-recyclable cups, lack of recycling bins, and shoddy water use policies. In the past, Starbucks has covered up environmental embarrassments with vague promises to build more energy-efficient stores and cut carbon emissions.Now the coffee company is making a legitimate attempt to do right by the environment with a plan to make sure that all single-use cups are recyclable by 2012. But Starbucks isn't stopping there; the company is using systems thinking to ensure that the entire life cycle of the cup --from factory to recycling bin--is sustainable....

Summary
 The old adage politics makes strange bedfellows is illustrated in the case of green jobs. As President Obama pledged, green jobs will result in building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs. Although promised before the election, current economic conditions allow the green jobs initiative to be packaged in the massive economic stimulus planspending billions of taxpayer dollars to help create jobs.

Pouring resources into green jobs that allegedly are environmentally friendly and productive is supported by interest groups such as the Blue Green Alliance (founded by the Sierra Club and United Steel Workers) and the Apollo Alliance and is similarly supported by unions, environmental groups, and politicians.

The basis for the green jobs program is simple: Carbon emissions are causing global warming, so emissions need to be reduced. A way to do this is to encourage non-carbon sources of energy, such as wind turbines and solar power. The result of government action will be many new jobs and a healthier environment. A two-for-one deal!

This policy series, by two PERC senior fellows and two of their colleagues, is a summary of a larger study analyzing green jobs claims made by various special interest groups. The authors find that the claims are based on myths. Fundamental questions about what is at stake in this massive program need to be addressed before billions in additional deficit spending can be justified. The authors discuss the economic defects in the green jobs proposals and show that not only is the price tag of the programs unjustified, but that the costly implications to society could be even greater.

The full report can be downloaded at http://www.perc.org/files/ps44.pdf

By Andrew P. Morriss, William T. Bogart, Andrew Dorchak and Roger E. Meiners
 the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) www.perc.org
 PERC Policy Series PS-44; May, 2009

 Original post blogged on b2evolution.

While water companies are now committed to reporting their carbon emissions, there is still a lack of standardisation and a number of practical obstacles still remain.