Wal-Mart Goes Green: The New Wal-Mart Employee Emissions Reduction Program

Bentonville, Arkansas, March 22, 2089 -- International low-budget retail conglomerate Wal-Mart said today it has joined the ranks of environmentally-friendly businesses with the announcement of WMEERP!, the Wal-Mart Employee Emissions Reduction Program.

Wal-Mart Methane Sealant

A spokesman for Wal-Mart said the company, through the WMEERP! Effort, hopes to reduce employee emissions by "up to 60% over two years", resulting in a global reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions by the company of nearly 300,000 tons.

"With WMEERP!, Wal-Mart will instantly rocket to world leadership in employee greenhouse gas emissions reductions," Pedo Pasar el Viento, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said. "Our low-impact, silent but deadly initiative trumps even IKEA. I'm reluctant to toot our own horn, but there's no denying the winds of change are blowing in our direction."

IKEA, along with many other major retail establishments including CostCo, Best Buy and DSG International, committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions early this century. IKEA, a consistent leader in the process, became fully "carbon neutral" 69 years ago in 2020. Wal-Mart is the last of the major retailers to undertake a comprehensive greenhouse gas reduction initiative.

Scoreggiare Furz, WMEERP! manager, explained the program today during a press conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania announcing its launch:

"Wal-Mart currently has over 3.7 million employees worldwide, each emitting up to a gallon of the dangerous greenhouse gas methane on a daily basis. That's nearly 15 million gallons a day, 5.4 billion gallons a year."

"Under WMEERP!, we aim to reduce that to as close to zero as possible by prohibiting any activity – either within or outside of the workplace – that could result in the passing of gas by any of our associates."

Wal-Mart first became aware of the major problem of global warming, Péter Merdeux, a Wal-Mart vice president for international product development, said, when its consequences began to exert an upward price pressure on sales.

"At Wal-Mart, cheap is everything," Mr. Merdeux said. "And that means cheap raw materials, cheap manufacturing, and cheap shipping to our superstores. We had no problems when the Southeast Asian seaboard was flooded to a level of only one or two feet – in fact, that made crop-dusting less of an issue – but once it got higher than that in the last couple of decades we started seeing the need for new, proactive measures.

"Most of our factory associates there – in the deltas, in Indonesia, Laos and so on – are what we term height-deprived. A lot of them grow out of that when they reach their teens, at least the ones who aren't too malnourished, but not fast enough to keep up with the rising waters. We realized that if we didn't do something soon, either we'd have to start hiring adults at much greater expense or move our manufacturing operations elsewhere. We chose WMEERP! as the path of least resistance."

Under WMEERP!, Wal-Mart associates will at all times be under standing orders to follow a strict dietary, exercise and colon control regimen similar to that once espoused by Wal-Mart's ascetic founder, Sam Watson.

"Sam, for example, never drank beer or ate anything spicy, garlicky, or overly vegetative, such as burritos, beans or cauliflower," Skid Fis, WMEERP! overseer for Wal-Mart's Danish operations, said. "And a lifetime of minimal flatulence was the admirable result. Nor did he spend inordinate time in the lavatory, which as we know is a notorious hotbed of noxious methane emissions. WMEERP! will simply apply Sam's teachings to all our first, second and third-tier associates. They, their children, our customers, and the world at large will thank us."

New WMEERP! directives, Mr. Fis said, include discreet latex "methane sealants" to be worn by associates under their uniforms, and an extension of Wal-Mart's popular "no bathroom break" policy to one break per Wal-Mart retail unit per 24-hour period.

"If there are 18 people in, for example, the cheese unit," Mr. Fis said, "then the individuals chosen for the break for that 24-hour period will be divided up via an easy-to-implement randomized alphabetical/seniority system using a customized deck of playing cards. We call it 'cut the cheese'."

To ensure a flatulence-free food supply, 30% of associates' income will be paid in the form of biodegradable food vouchers redeemable at Wal-Mart "Gruel-pits", conveniently located adjacent to most Wal-Mart stores and superstores.

"If we can keep all of our associates on three bowls of unflavored gruel a day, washed down with healthy, non-carbonated water, we expect that to drop emissions by nearly half almost overnight," Mr. Fis said.

Wal-Mart shares ballooned 9 3/8ths following the announcement.

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor