Sears is a member of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), one of the country’s largest trade organizations. RILA’s latest contribution to green advocacy is a massive effort to impose “sustainability” standards on member companies.
To adhere to these new environmental rules, RILA calls on its member companies to undertake expensive capital expenditures, restrict the use of the property they own, and lobby local governments for more restrictive building codes that would apply to all members of the community, not just RILA members.
Edward Lampert, Sears’ largest stockholder who became CEO of Sears just recently after previously serving as chairman of Sears Holdings Corporation, responded, “Personally, I don’t like coercive solutions. I think America is over-regulated.”
According to the National Center’s press release, Lampert appeared “unaware of Sears’ role in RILA,” saying at one point, “I have no idea what RILA is.”
Sears held a position on the RILA board of directors as recently as January. It was filled by then-CEO Lou D’Ambrosio, who left the company at the start of May.
“I am encouraged to see that Mr. Lampert seems to appreciate the true role of business in a capitalist society: to lawfully deliver the best products at the lowest price,” said Horace Cooper. This, not high-sounding words like ‘sustainability,’ is the route to prosperity.”
“As of now, RILA’s sustainability standards are voluntary. However, it appears they are poised to make these costly standards mandatory for all its corporate members,” Cooper claimed. “If mandated, these sustainability standards could create a new monopoly whereby large retailers–using their buying leverage–raise costs to suppliers and consumers to fuel this ideological agenda.”
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