News from Business Week on Wal-Mart states the following:

The retailing giant announced the initiative Sept. 24 in partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a nonprofit group supported by institutional shareholders that focuses on climate change and carbon emissions. Wal-Mart says it plans to use the Carbon Disclosure Project’s expertise to help set up the new program with its suppliers. “We are working together to measure our global supply chain footprint and to encourage our suppliers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said John Fleming, executive vice-president and chief merchandising officer at Wal-Mart.

There are a lot of issues in the air here - social responsibility, cutting of costs, strong-arming of suppliers, image, and much more. We’ll see how this plays out.

Via Consumerist.