Michael Barbaro and Felicity Barringer (Extracted from "WalMart to seek energy savings", New York Times, 25 October 2005)

"Wal-Mart's chief executive is set to announce on Tuesday a set of sweeping, specific environmental goals to reduce energy use in its stores, double its trucks' fuel efficiency, minimize its use of packaging and pressure thousands of companies in its worldwide supply chain to follow its lead."

[Ed: When the repertoire of consumer goods becomes stabilised and when the labour costs become minimised then the only source of future profits is to seek extra efficiency. And this means exactly the same thing as using minimum energy in its production and distribution. Food is the first sector in which no uniquely new foods are likely to be found which could yield high profit margins, so it is not surprisingly that a firm such as Wal-Mart should be the first to take the commercial future seriously. This will happen repeatedly in one consumer goods sector after another because it is becoming increasingly apparent that there are unlikely to be any uniquely new products that consumers have the time to experience or consume.]