Consumer Engagement

Each year consumers spend $218 billion on food that ends up going to waste. And, about $277 million of that waste will happen during Thanksgiving — when Americans begin to plan, purchase and prepare lavish meals which usually result in leftovers that ultimately end up in the trash. Now, two organizations have partnered to create an easy-to-use innovation that curbs food waste while making holiday cooking a little bit easier.

Walmart aspires to help make choices easier and more transparent for people. We serve hundreds of millions of customers every year, and we advocate for them among suppliers to provide more sustainably produced products while maintaining the low prices customers expect.

eBay helps give products the opportunity to find renewed life and value.

Last April, Walmart launched Project Gigaton, a project that invites our merchandise suppliers to join us in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the products they make and the way they make them, taking 1 gigaton (yes, that’s really a word - a billion metric tons) of emissions out of the atmosphere. That’s equal to all the emissions produced from all the homes in California over three years.

“The circular economy is not an entirely new concept, but it is presently at a major inflection point. Its intellectual roots emerged from early ideas and practices of recycling and pollution prevention, life cycle analysis, eco-efficiency assessments and analysis of materials flows. In response to current sustainability challenges and business opportunities circular economy proponents are now attempting to transition it from a diverse set of individual methodologies aimed at addressing specific problems to a more integrated and systematic set of ideas to transform business strategies and operations.”

What do Patagonia, Keurig, and Costco have in common? At first glance, not a lot. One brand makes activewear, one sells coffee, and another sells… well, just about everything in between. But they have one important similarity you may not know about: They all sell fair trade products ranging from tea and coffee to apparel, body care, and home goods.

Hear from workers at Wholesum Harvest's Amado farm about what Fair Trade means to them and how they are using their Community Development Funds to address their most pressing community needs.

Journey with Celina Lima, a fellow with Fair Trade Campaigns, to a coffee cooperative in Guatemala to lean about the true impact and benefits that Fair Trade has brought to their communities and individual lives.

The representatives from Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam discussed the achievements and challenges of their respective national social-forestry programs at a seminar organised by the ASEAN Working Group on Social Forestry in Jakarta as part of a social-forestry festival hosted by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

American Express and The National Trust for Historic Preservation, in collaboration with Main Street America, announced today that Partners in Preservation is headed to Main Street. Partners in Preservation is a community-based partnership to raise awareness of the importance of preserving historic places and their role in sustaining local communities. This year’s program, Partners in Preservation: Main Streets, will award $2 million in grants to Main Street districts in need of preservation support across America.