ABSTRACT
Amanda Griscom Little admitted she was “a tad creeped out” when the audience of more
than 800 erupted and gave, with much shouting and hand signals, a Wal-Mart chant.
(Give me a W…A…L…M…A… R…T… What does that spell?… Who do we love?)
She was in Bentonsville, AR in 2006 at the corporate headquarters of the world’s most
successful retailer. Wal-Mart fascinated her, but not for its financial success (Little,
2006f). What intrigued her was Lee Scott, Wal-Mart chief executive officer, who had
announced that the company wanted to run on 100 percent renewable energy and produce
zero waste. Since then, the company had proposed mandatory caps on greenhouse-gas
emissions. Little had interviewed Scott in a story titled “Don’t Discount Him” (Little,
2006b). His comments were at odds with a company often accused of creating suburban
sprawl, producing mountains of waste and promoting gratuitous consumption. On the day
Little was in Arkansas, the Wal-Mart executives were all watching An Inconvenient
Truth, a documentary on the threat of climate change. They were about to hear from the
man behind the film, former Vice President Al Gore (Little, 2006f).
