As a corporate giant and the biggest of the big box stores, Wal-Mart is known for taking over mom and pop shops, offering the lowest prices on what are often the lowest quality products, and generally promoting the consumerism of the US. What they’re not known for is being green. But that may change if the new universal green labeling system that Wal-Mart is working on comes to fruition.

It would be, put simply, an environmental nutrition label, and would include information on the carbon footprint of a product, the water consumption required to make the product, and the air pollution that was created as a result of the product, and it could revolutionize shopping in the United States. In the UK, shopping king Tesco has already begun to feature carbon labeling on the products they sell (starting with their in-store brand), but there—like here—the issue of determining the standards for labeling is a tricky one. So tricky, in fact, that Wal-Mart has tapped environmental groups (like the Environmental Defense Fund), academics, and their product suppliers for help in setting up the labeling system. The company has also set an estimated time line of five years for cementing the standards and implementing in their stores.

Ironically, the very reasons Wal-Mart is often criticized by environmentalists and green consumers (its size and its cost-as-priority approach) may be what enables Wal-Mart to create the universal green labeling system. Wal-Mart is a leader in the industry and its business actions are often mimicked by other companies; likewise its drive for a better bottom line may keep suppliers from jumping ship. Still, there are plenty of potential pitfalls on the path to an eco-label. For instance, participation in the development of the labeling system and in the system itself will be voluntary, and if suppliers aren’t willing to cooperate things will get considerably rougher for the blue box store. Another issue is what these green labels, if accurate, would reveal about Wal-Mart’s products—provided suppliers didn’t quickly change their ways. It’s easy to specultate that the facts could be less than pretty. Finally, there’s the biggest issue of all: What if Wal-Mart does nothing more than develop the best greenwashing there is? If their system skews facts in favor of suppliers or reworks wording for the sake of the dollar, many consumers will believe they’re buying green without taking the time to evaluate the info. Hopefully the involvement of green groups and environmental scientists will keep the labelling legit, but only time will tell.

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