Stranger things have happened, I guess. Of course, I’m sure it’ll end up making them big profits. That bottom line is what’s important, after all. Now, if only they’d stop tolerating harassment, stop restricting important medicine for women, and give their frontline employees reasonable wages and better health insurance. Dare to dream….

From InformationWeek’s Personal Tech Weblog:

Wal-Mart Joins Uncle Sam On ‘Green’ Bandwagon
By Chris Murphy

Still think this “Green Computing” is a lot of tree hugger blather you can safely ignore? This week, Wal-Mart joins the U.S. government in embracing standards for what a makes an earth-friendly computer. This drumbeat’s going to keep getting louder.

Wal-Mart has set the criteria it’ll use next year to offer rankings of how environmentally friendly various electronic products are. As K.C. Jones reports, it’ll create “scorecards” for factors such as energy efficiency, durability, and package size. Wal-Mart also will consider what ends up in the dump—such as whether the product can be upgraded and recycled, and whether it contains hazardous materials.

This points to a huge change coming in Green Computing: it’s going to be a whole lot easier to measure whether your computers are earth friendly. Wal-Mart’s market clout means what it does tends to ripple through the industry.

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