Walmart and Target Report

Walmart and Target Report II: External

Walmart and Target are the largest retail chains on the market, thus, they are each other's main competitors. Each company has one`s own policy and strategy which is centered around their main objectives. Walmart attracts the clients with the help of an impressive discount policy while Target relies on their catchy advertising campaigns and the up-to-date design partnership. Although, both Walmart and Target take the same niche on the market for the relatively long time, Walmart is appreciated for low pricing whereas,Target has significantly higher client satisfaction rate. However, both companies set the goal to become the most sustainable brand and their Corporate Responsibility Reports demonstrate the significant achievements of both organizations on the way to pursuing their goals. Yet, the external stakeholders draw a slightly different picture for both companies’ social and environmental practices.

It should be noted that despite its comparatively enormous size and expansion in 28 countries of the world, According to Forbes 2015 , Walmart ranks as #20 in most valuable brand and globally ranks as #16. Walmart is far more controversial in regards to the question of sustainability than Target. Walmart is known for about ten years to strive and want to become the leader in sustainability. According to Makower “Walmart proves to succeed in it” (2015). The latest reports claim that Walmart has “already exceeded the goal of 2010 to diminish the greenhouse gas emissions in the quantity of 28,2 million metric tons from the company's global supply chain” (Makower 2015). This can be seen as a positive side of Walmart improving their environmental performance.

Also, Walmart is announcing that the fuel efficiency of the fleet has doubled since 2005. Recently, Walmart have been making many efforts in order “to increase the streams of recycled materials for them to be used by the suppliers of the product packaging” (Makower 2015).

Still, it is extremely frustrating that the data reported by Walmart is not of absolute values. In other words, this a negative aspect the retailer can be using the higher percentage of an amount of renewable energy over the years, but its total use of energy is likely to rise as well, as Walmart keeps opening new locations. In addition to that, Walmart does not actually disclose its total consumption of energy, which makes it almost impossible to assess the true progress of the company.

Overall, Makower claims “that the sustainability work of Walmart is in progress”, therefore, the products are becoming greener and cheaper, and customers` are saving money, as well as the environmental impact is significantly reduced (Makower 2015). At the same time, Walmart frequently undergoes severe criticism. For instance, in the article by Michelle Chen, “Walmart is described as the company whose pricing policy does not justify its unfair actions”. To support this, Chen mentions that Food Chain Workers Alliance advocacy group have traced the supply chain of Walmart and uncovered some significant violations practically at every link of it (Chen 2015). The company indeed have introduced the guidelines for sustainable and ethical sourcing, as well as new animal-welfare guidelines aimed at livestock, but it happened due to the significant public pressure ( Chen 2015).

The human welfare department has also proved to demonstrate the mistreatment. The company exploits the supply chain workers with less resource because Walmart does not employ them directly (Chen 2015). According to Chen, Walmart also gets an indirect profit from the abused and brutally enslaved migrant labors. A number of cases of the workforce abuse have been reported in different areas, such as forced peeling of the crawl fish, as well as similar practices in the egg and lettuce supply chains. In addition, the similar combination of market control and intimidation is the basis of the Walmart`s Heritage Agriculture programs targeted at both US farmers and emerging markets in India and China ( Chen 2015).

In addition to the aforementioned, Walmart has been spotted in committing several environmental crimes, such as violating the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and federal pesticide safety rules. Furthermore, Walmart produces a vast threat to the public health and habitats in local communities (Chen 2015). All in all, Chen comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to retain the low prices while maintaining fair working standards. Nevertheless, the sustainability initiatives of Walmart have proved to demonstrate some real impact on both the company's operations and also on the company's supply chain. However, some of the progress are somehow offset by the growth of the company.

On the contrary, Target cannot boast particularly low pricing policy, however, the company's reports are really close to the situation visible to the external stakeholders. Consequently, the company received fewer criticism from the outside. It is widely known that the history of Target turns on two important decisions.One of these was the understanding by Dayton’s department store of the fact that the customers were gathering more to the less expensive items that were on sale in its basement. Therefore, this was the genesis of Target in the same year then also the Walmart was born. At the same time, Walmart specifically