Why Walmart’s first CSO thinks sustainability leaders should ‘live with operations’

Former Walmart CEO Lee Scott asked Andy Ruben to lead the retailer’s environmental strategy three times before he reluctantly agreed to become its first corporate social responsibility and sustainability chief in October 2004. 

Ruben, who supported Scott’s strategic planning work, had been angling for a traditional role with profit and loss responsibility, but his boss was insistent that a strategic thinker was the best person to lead Walmart’s first concerted push to address environmental and social concerns. 

Scott’s motivation: addressing a crisis in consumer trust and responding to growing criticisms about Walmart’s environmental and labor practices as the retailer’s revenue edged close to the $285 billion mark. “This was about how Walmart would make use of scale,” recalled Ruben, now the founder of resale startup Trove, during the latest episode of the Climate Pioneers interview series. “It wasn’t about solving for phthalates.”

One year after Ruben stepped in, Walmart announced three simple goals with no end date: to be supplied with 100 percent renewable electricity, to eliminate all operational waste and to sell products that aren’t a drag on planetary resources. 

“As we looked at those early years, it was essentially finding innovation anywhere in the business for decision makers and profit and loss owners to do things that would work for customers,” he said. “Society was viewed as the biggest, longest term, broadest way to think about strategy.” This thinking was later foundational in Ruben’s decision to leave Walmart to found one of the first startups focused on “recommerce,” or the resale of secondhand goods.

Lesson: Speak the language of front-line managers

During his three-year tenure as Walmart’s sustainability chief, Ruben learned to be as “bilingual” as possible in conversations with division heads and front-line store operations managers — i.e., asking about their business concerns, hearing about their frustrations. 

By doing so, Ruben was able to connect the dots between Walmart’s initiative to shrink the shelf space it used for laundry detergent and early design initiatives to reduce volumes of water into more concentrated product formulas.

“It wasn’t about trying to achieve a climate goal,” he said. “It was understanding environmental and social topics as the broadest form of strategy and leveraging that as innovators.”

Likewise, this thinking can help organizations course-correct quickly if an idea doesn’t work. Ruben cited the example of a program he later tried as head of Walmart’s private label group to shrink the size of cereal boxes — saving on packaging materials. That effort didn’t move the needle in the way Ruben anticipated. 

“I was so naive,” he said. “I thought, ‘I’ll just take these great sustainability learnings and we’ll just put them into the products and supply chains.’” 

What Ruben didn’t account for was the broader systemic changes required for a new box design to catch on more broadly across the product category. “You couldn’t avoid the model that we were in, and you had to face that,” he said.

His advice for new CSOs who don’t have a background in operations: “Live with operations. I think the understanding of why things are the way they are, and what people need short term and longer term to achieve their businesses and be successful, is so essential to building longer-term thinking … into current business.”

Another tip: When an idea is rejected, ask why. “Every time someone says no, there’s something behind that. Don’t miss the opportunity to understand that.”

Big idea: Help brands resell used products

Ruben’s private-label experience illustrated the limits of corporate sustainability initiatives focused mainly on improved eco-efficiency, so he stepped outside of the system in 2012 to create Yerdle, a marketplace that let consumers trade household items ranging from electronics to clothing.  

The venture grew to more than 1 million members — validating consumer interest in secondhand goods — but “self-inflicted” missteps and lackluster interest from brands prompted a reset four years later. That’s when Ruben seized on the idea of offering a way for companies to start their own resale businesses rather than letting others control that narrative. Early supporters: Eileen Fisher, Patagonia and REI. The company is now known as Trove.

“We pivoted to take the capabilities we had and allow the brands to leverage the capabilities to compete in this new way,” he said.

From a sustainability standpoint, extending the life of apparel and other items by allowing them to find a second home is a feel-good story but it’s not the top reason most consumers buy secondhand. Reducing consumption is often the third consideration after brand value and whether the item is available quickly. That’s OK with Ruben. 

“I’m good with it being first, second, third, fourth or fifth in order,” he said. “What I really want to see happen is I want to see us change the way we work. When you think about the way we operate from the sky, making hundreds of billions of new items every year and then going through all of the sourcing, production, movement [of goods] only to bury them nine months later back in the ground, it is kind of idiocy.”

Resale accelerant? Trump’s tariff crisis

Uncertainty over the sales impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy — consumer confidence has slipped across many indexes since January — could serve as a nudge for companies to more tightly integrate circular economy strategies with core business initiatives, Ruben said. 

“I don’t think they’re the sole driver,” he observed, “but they’re an accelerant.”

Before Trump’s tariff talk sent chills through the retail and consumer products sectors, multiple market forecasts called for growth of 10-12 percent in 2025. Another indicator published in early July predicted sales of $65 billion in the U.S. alone.

The ultimate goal of Trove’s business model is to help companies erase the value judgement between whether something is new or used, which will be crucial for helping circular economy initiatives find a place within corporations that isn’t viewed as a side hustle.

Product take-back and trade-in programs won’t truly make an impact until sales of those used items start eating into sales of new ones. 

“The key metric is when you bring back an item, if that item gets sold to someone and displaces some new sales growth dollars, you’re good,” Ruben said.