Retail Giant Wal-Mart is once again pushing the supply chain envelope, this time in the area of energy use. The company recently said as part of a partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project, it will ask suppliers in seven product categories to report how much energy they use in the production of the products they sell to Wal-Mart.

The move comes as part of Wal-Mart's Sustainability 360 program, which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of its massive global supply chain.

In a statement announcing the program, Jim Stanway, senior director of Wal-Mart's Global Supply Chain Initiatives, said, "This is a learning process and the members of this group are pioneers addressing some of the biggest challenges in the world today. With the help of our suppliers, CDP and other partners, we can better understand the impact of energy and our supply chain."

But this project will also likely reduce suppliers' costs, savings which will assumedly be passed onto Wal-Mart.

In a follow-up interview with the Financial Times, Stanway said, "The more we learn here, the more there's real business and consumer opportunity, in that there's a lot of unharvested efficiencies yet. We hope to...help suppliers get the costs of the carbon out of the system."

And John Fleming, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer of Wal-Mart Stores Division, said in statement, "This is an opportunity to spur innovation and efficiency throughout our supply chain that will not only help protect the environment but save people money at the same time."

Wal-Mart also announced in late September that by May 2008 it will only sell concentrated liquid laundry detergent. In a company statement, Wal-Mart said it is trying to "be a catalyst for the transformation of the entire liquid laundry detergent category across the retail industry and save vast amounts of natural resources. Partnering closely with its suppliers, Wal-Mart made the decision to offer only concentrated detergent, and leading manufacturers began transforming their facilities to accommodate this request, leaving less capacity for old-fashioned detergents with high water content."

Two of Wal-Mart's biggest laundry detergent suppliers, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, said they will begin or have begun supplying the concentrated product in smaller bottles.