The Home Depot 'Paints' Itself Green

With stores in Canada already successfully selling its environmentally friendly products, the Home Depot looks to become the largest retailer of eco-friendly products in America.

1 minute read

April 18, 2007, 5:00 AM PDT

By Mike Lydon


"After squabbling over prices for decades, the nation's big-box retail chains are ready to battle in a new arena: the environment.

Home Depot today will introduce a label for nearly 3,000 products, like fluorescent light bulbs that conserve electricity and natural insect killers, that promote energy conservation, sustainable forestry and clean water.

The initiative - which is expected to include 6,000 products by 2009, representing 12 percent of the chain's sales - would become the largest green labeling program in American retailing and could persuade competitors to speed up their own plans.

And it signals that Home Depot, the country's second-largest retailer, is joining the largest, Wal-Mart, in pursuing issues of public concern like climate change that stores have left to governments and environmental groups."

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 in The New York Times

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