This past weekend, Continuum hosted a sustainable design training program for clients and colleagues. The training was delivered by Dr. Benjamin Linder of Olin College. Ben has been giving this training to Continuum staff, in chunks of 15-20 people. We ask a lot of him: take what you teach over 2 or 3 courses, add a professional perspective, and then trim it down to fit in a total of about 12 hours. It’s not everything you need to know about sustainable design, just the first few things. As Ben says, “This program will change your head, but you need more training to teach your hands.”

The attendees ranged in seniority and spread across industries, from appliances to building materials to lighting. The best part of the sessions was the discussion among the attendees. Each brought a different perspective to the design exercises, and each had a story to share about the progress they made and challenges they faced bringing sustainability into their business activities. Late in the second day, it occurred to the group that Wal-Mart had provided the strongest impetus for change in the companies of several attendees. These companies had wanted to adopt more sustainable practices, but the demands of business always took precedence. As soon as Wal-Mart began making demands of suppliers, the intent to green up was galvanized into action.

Alex Goldschmidt of Walmartwatch astutely reports the low compliance and low enforcement of Wal-Mart’s touted green packaging rules. Clearly some suppliers have called Wal-Mart’s bluff about the consequences for non-compliance. Goldschmidt points out that some suppliers learned this pattern from Wal-Mart’s RFID initiative, which cost vendors heavily and was eventually not enforced across the board. A participant at our training program mentioned the RFID history as well, but instead of seeing it as a precedent for failure, he reported that the green initiative was different, and had succeeded in forcing a change in his company.

Even though Wal-Mart cannot, or more accurately will not, convince every supplier to change, in some industries Wal-Mart is the only force that has a chance of causing change. In the canonical Cradle to Cradle, McDonough and Braungart say that, “being ‘less bad’ is no good.” I don’t see how I could argue with such giants in the movement, but I am still glad that Wal-Mart put forth their initiative, published their scorecard, and got some companies to change.