当谈到做玩具更环保，沃尔玛是不是玩弄

这是在一系列关于沃尔玛的供应商可持续发展指数的故事第三。竞彩足球app怎么下载的概述这里, and a story about flour, bread and agriculture is这里。今天的话题：塑料玩具。

Walmart wants to improve the sustainability of plastic toys. The giant retailer isn't playing around.

具体来说，该公司希望改善工人谁做玩具的安全性。它还希望确保制造商正在采取措施玩具中使用更少的所谓的“关注的化学品”。它希望供应商能够处理任何问题，当孩子们长大了芭比或GI Joe和扔掉提高。如果纸张或木材进入玩具包装，沃尔玛想知道它是否“来源按照可信的认证系统，该系统的地址生态系统的影响和生物多样性。”

一些批评者认为太远沃尔玛正在此。这就是这个故事是关于什么的。

沃尔玛的供应商可持续发展指数，目前正在竞彩足球app怎么下载推广到数千家供应商，是公司历史上最大的环境举措。它可能会带来巨大的好处，要求公司，使消费者对产品检查他们从来没有做过的方式对环境的影响。不过该指标也提出了关于如何在全球最大的零售商（2012年收入：$ 469十亿）问题行使其市场力量。

Consider, as an example, PVC, or polyvinyl chloride plastic, commonly known as vinyl. It's a widely used plastic that shows up in toys, including such iconic plastic toys as Hasbro's我的小马驹and Mattel's芭比娃娃。它变软或硬。它是坚固稳定的可塑性，低成本和出色的持色。

What, if anything, is wrong with PVCs? That depends on who you ask.

Greenpeace has campaigned for a decade against PVCs.It says：“这个老生常谈的塑料是最有毒物质浸透我们的星球和它的居民的一个PVC污染人类和整个生命周期的环境：。它的生产，使用和处理过程中”

The Vinyl Institute, an industry group, strongly disagrees. "Vinyl’s been used safely since the 1950s, including in medical products that have been approved by the FDA, pipes that are used to deliver drinking water and consumer products that are approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission," says Allen Blakey, vice president of industry and government affairs. Whether the issue is manufacturing or disposal, the environmental and health issues raised about PVCs are manageable, he said.

和沃尔玛？这里事情变得模糊。沃尔玛的供应商可持续发展指数的基础上，竞彩足球app怎么下载通过确定的“热点”可持续发竞彩足球app怎么下载展协会鼓励玩具商来管理其使用PVC的。（Here is a PDFof questions that The Sustainability Consortium has raised about plastic toys. Note that the first is about PVCs.) It's safe to assume that suppliers that respond that "we are actively eliminating PVC from our products" will score higher than those who do not.

但为什么？

而且是不存在风险的时候沃尔玛发生在通常留给政府监管部门是谁，至少在理论上，是对公众负责的作用？

环境保护基金会的米歇尔·哈维，谁与沃尔玛紧密合作，说，可持续发展指数，正是重要的，因为它可以推动行业超越需要什么样的，他们依法行事。竞彩足球app怎么下载

“如果零售商必须在某种程度上这是更好地为消费者移动类别的能力，对工人，对地球，我不认为这是有问题的，‘她说，’这就是为什么我们在本顿维尔。”

The trouble is, Walmart doesn't have to hold hearings or invite public comment before laying out its goals.

The Vinyl Institute's Blakey says: “We were never asked to engage or provide data into the process."

Even now, it's hard to know what, exactly, troubles Walmart about PVCs. By email, Kevin Dooley, a professor of supply-chain management at Arizona State University and academic director of research at The Sustainability Consortium, told me:

在调查的塑料玩具的生命周期中，TSC发现一些出版物在文献中文档工人PVC癌症的发病率增加生产。我们的利益相关者指出，许多研究都比较老了，这是真的，那现代化的生产设备有设备和减少或消除这些风险，所以TSC对这个问题的改进机会集中在环境健康与安全系统的PVC工艺制造商必须到位。

If the focus is health and safety in manufacturing, though, it's not clear why suppliers would be asked whether they are "actively eliminating PVCs."

To see what the world's big toymakers think about this, I reached out to Mattel, LEGO and Hasbro. Mattel declined to be interviewed, and sent me this statement about PVC:

As one of the most highly-tested plastics in the world, PVC meets international standards for safety and health. It is an extremely versatile material that is durable, safe and easy to clean. It is also more resistant to stress marks from impacts and flexation compared to other alternative plastics. Our evaluations to date of alternative plastics have not identified a material that is able meet all of Mattel’s quality, safety, aesthetic, supply-chain and cost requirements, while at the same time exhibiting improved environmental attributes.

因此，美泰与PVC的坚持。

For its part, LEGO says the company has worked for decades to eliminate PVCs, as well as phthalates — another controversial chemical, often added to plastics to make them more flexible — from its toys. "As a result," a spokesman said by email, "the LEGO Group’s toys do not contain these substances today."

Hasbro, meanwhile, is somewhere in the middle. Kathrin Belliveau, Hasbro's vice president of corporate responsibility, told me by phone that PVCs pose a challenge for toymakers. Hasbro promised in 2011 to eliminate PVC from “all new core toy and game packaging beginning in 2013" (as Ireported here) but it isn't ready to get PVC out of the toys themselves.

“That one is definitely more difficult," Belliveau told me. "We are looking at alternate materials.”

孩之宝有什么不能做什么，她说，是它的玩具的质量和吸引力妥协。“我们不认为许多孩子想要一个洋娃娃......与接缝不仅顺着其头部正中间，”她说。

Among the big toymakers, Hasbro appears to best positioned to benefit from the Walmart index. Belliveau says she has been told — and Walmart insiders confirmed to me — that Hasbro is one of the top-ranked toymakers, outperforming big and small rivals. LEGO is not far behind, and Mattel trails them both. All three are well ahead of a pack of laggards that includes Slinky and Crayola, insiders say, along with a long list of B-to-B suppliers whose names would be unknown outside the industry.

这些非名牌企业将获得可持续性敲响了警钟，同时更好地了解公司，如美泰公司和LEGO会得到回报，它似乎。竞彩足球app怎么下载

“我们很高兴的指数，”孩之宝的Belliveau告诉我，部分是因为“这是一个伟大的方式，以基准我们的计划和进展情况。”

Walmart isn't making the company rankings public.

That's understandable, but the company should be clear and forthright about the science that guides the rankings and the index. When it comes to PVCs, the big retailer still has some explaining to do.

Image of Barbie via Mattel.com