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Doing laundry in America will never be the same again. In a massive operation starting this month, every big retailer and every leading manufacturer is switching to smaller bottles of double-strength liquid detergent - a shift that will reduce the use of plastics, water and fuel.
In Hawaii and California, engineers are meanwhile working to instal 22 arrays of solar power panels that will together produce 22 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year, in one of the world's largest initiatives to draw energy from the sun. On the other side of the world, Thai shrimp farmers have been upgrading their operations to meet new certification standards set by the Global Aquaculture Alliance. Behind all three changes lies the world's biggest retailer - Wal-Mart.
It is two years since Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive, announced that the company was embarking on a drive to improve its much-criticised reputation on issues such as its environmental impact, diversity policies and working conditions in its vast global supply chain.
"Due to our size and scope, we are uniquely positioned to have great success and impact in the world, perhaps like no company before us," Scott declared, in a speech that set out ambitious specific targets including cuts in the waste it generates and the energy it uses.
Follow the leader
Because of Wal-Mart's sheer size and market share, most of its rivals have no choice but to follow its lead - and the company has found itself setting standards beyond those that regulators require. "They have so much market power that they could drive environmental change through 50,000 companies," says Michael Marx of Corporate Ethics International, one of the first environmentalist activists to sit down with the retailer's executives.
The greening of Wal-Mart continues apace, represented in its most banal form by the mini-sized business cards made from recycled paper that its executives now wield. The retailer, long accused of using its market power to lower standards, is setting and supporting the development of more demanding requirements on issues ranging from packaging to gemstone mining.
Wal-Mart's critics say it is doing nothing more than "greenwashing" a fundamentally unsustainable business model. They claim the strategy is an attempt to split the alliance of US groups that has sought to slow Wal-Mart's efforts to open new stores and has supported attempts to pass legislation that would hamper the company's profitability.
Retailing an industry-wide change
Wal-Mart's buying power is also changing the way that other American companies and industries do business.
In the mundane world of laundry detergent, the imminent shift to double concentrate came after Wal-Mart started indicating that it wanted to see its suppliers taking active steps to reduce packaging - with its chief executive Lee Scott personally praising Unilever for developing a triple -concentrate version of its All detergent.
Procter & Gamble, Henkel and Church & Dwight took the hint and all the four largest producers will introduce the double concentrate at the same time - supported not just by Wal-Mart but also by its rival Target and the big US supermarket chains - a rare example of an industry-wide change being brought about without regulation.
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