Wal-Mart Let's You See Where Jewelry Originated

Photo: AP Photo / Morry Gash

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Just days after announcing with WWF that the world's largest retailer would stop selling wood products derived from forests that were clear cut or illegally harvested, Wal-Mart announced a partnership with Conservation International to sell its first line of jewelry whose origins can be traced to the very mine that produced the ore.

The Love, Earth jewelry line will be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, which is the world's largest retailer of jewelry. The mining partners are Rio Tinto and Newmont Mining Corp., which claims to be the only gold company listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index-World. (There are, however, criticisms of Newmont's mine, and more generally about gold mining, which is generally a highly polluting endeavor.

At least, letting customers peer into the supply chain will let them make better decisions, ask better questions and ultimately put pressure on other retailers, jewelers and mines to improve their practices. Typically, there's no easy way to tell where many products originate, or what environmental pollution resulted from their manufacturing. At least with this brand of jewelry, the customer has access to that information.

The step is another example of Wal-Mart using its enormous market clout to make a positive difference. For years, the retailer was known for bullying local communities, making ghost towns of small town business districts and providing low-cost products at the expense of organized labor and the environment. But in the last few years, Wal-Mart is making a new name for itself as it seeks to improve its environmental performance and find innovative ways to save money, energy and the unnecessary use of natural resources.

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