Who?s No. 1? Billboard Gives Nod to the Eagles (Touch Points)

A last minute change in its policies put the Eagles’ “Long Road out of Eden” at the top spot on Billboard’s album charts following its Oct. 30 exclusive release through Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Billboard’s long-standing policy has been to not include sales from albums not widely available at the retail level, but it faced the embarrassing possibility of listing drug- and alcohol-addled Britney Spears’ appropriately named “Blackout” CD at the top spot despite selling just 290,000 copies to the Eagles’ 710,000.

“Never in Billboard’s history had the credibility of our charts faced such a threat,” wrote Billboard director of charts and senior analyst Geoff Mayfield in the Nov. 17 issue. “Suddenly, a policy that made a lot of sense in 1992 (that an album must be generally available at retail to qualify for Billboard’s charts) seemed antiquated.

“I heard juicy speculation that Eagles manager Irving Azoff or Wal-Mart exerted enormous pressure on Billboard to chart “Eden,” but in fact, the quest for the album’s data was a charge we led with Nielsen SoundScan. So far as we could tell, the chain and the band seemed content for a press release to tout the album’s success.”

The exclusivity of the Eagles’ CD – their first release of new material in 28 years with 20 songs in a two-disc, environmentally friendly package – had other retailers taking steps to fill customer demand.

Rolling Stone reported soon after the release that Virgin mega-stores in urban areas like Manhattan were selling the Eagles album for $18 to $25, a practice known as “importing” and quite a markup from the $11.88 price at Wal-Mart.

Billboard and SoundScan said they weeded out the double sales to make sure sales data were accurate.

Zimmerman Previews Sustainability Report

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. posted stronger than expected earnings for the third quarter and while there’s no telling how much its efforts in sustainability helped beat “The Street,” the early indication is it isn’t hurting.

At the 5th Annual Northwest Arkansas Corporate Council for Conservation luncheon on Nov. 8 at Springdale Country Club, Wal-Mart vice president of prototype and new format development Charles Zimmerman gave a summary of the Bentonville retailer’s sustainability achievements to date.

Wal-Mart originally planned to release a report this past April on its sustainability initiatives launched in 2005, but the complexity of the effort pushed it back before it was released on Nov. 15.

Zimmerman’s presentation was a sneak preview of what the report included.

Wal-Mart’s No. 2 operating expense is energy and it buys more electricity than any entity in the country other than the U.S. Government.

For that reason, Zimmerman said the company has been focused on efficiency long before the word “sustainability” became the buzz word of industry, and its U.S. stores are the most energy efficient in the world.

Zimmerman said U.S. stores use half as much energy as its stores in the United Kingdom and 50 percent less than those in the Seiyu chain in Japan where the global warming protocol Kyoto Treaty was authored.

Wal-Mart’s stated goals are for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 and the development of a store prototype that is 25 percent to 30 percent more efficient by 2009.

Zimmerman said 400 stores have been retrofitted with more efficient HVAC systems (6 percent reduction), new refrigeration systems (8 percent) and motion-controlled LED lighting (3 percent).

That’s a total of 17 percent reduction on three retrofits. Zimmerman said Wal-Mart has 12 retrofitting strategies and he confidently stated, “We will easily meet our goal by 2012.”

Wal-Mart’s impact on industry has been tremendous. Zimmerman said the company approached all its HVAC, refrigeration and lighting suppliers with its goals for energy reductions.

Lennox met Wal-Mart’s desires and Zimmerman said, “now we buy all our HVAC from Lennox.”

Zimmerman made similar statements about Hill Phoenix, who developed the closed loop CO2 refrigeration system, and General Electric, which met Wal-Mart goals for more efficient lighting.

“But now Phillips has lighting that is 50 percent more efficient, so we’ll probably start buying from them,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said British rival grocer Tesco is now using the same motion-controlled LED lights and Walgreens is moving that direction as well.

LED lighting will reduce energy use by 60 percent in parking lot lights, and reduce maintenance costs to replace lights in the store signage every two years, while putting lunch meats and cheeses behind closed cases can save 70 percent.

Refrigerant leakage represents 11 percent of Wal-Mart’s total energy usage, more than the 7 percent on its truck fleet, which is reportedly the second largest fleet in the country.

A 70 percent reduction in refrigerant leakage could offset Wal-Mart’s entire truck fleet, the equivalent of taking nearly 1 billion diesel-belching miles off the road each year.