– Reduced waste by 80 percent – Expanded locally grown produce (up by 97 percent) – Pledged to source $20 billion from women-owned businesses in the U.S. – Saved customers $1 billion on fresh fruits and vegetables – Announced a “Great for you” icon that will help shoppers identify healthier food items.

The article goes on to say that with respect to waste “Walmart’s doing very well, largely because eliminating waste makes business sense. As the new report explains: In 2011, Walmart U.S. prevented 80.9 percent of the waste generated by its stores, clubs and distribution centers nationwide from going to the landfill. This has the potential to prevent more than 11.8 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, the equivalent of taking more than 2 million cars off the road. The zero landfill waste program returned more than $231 million to the business last year through a combination of increased recycling revenue and decreased expenses.”

Henry Ford would have been pleased. Recall that he said that waste costs you twice … once when you buy the original product or material and the second time when you pay to get rid of the left overs.

According to the “happiness” list above some of these clearly have social impacts.

So, the question remains – what are the best (or at least most practicable) social measures and how do we link them to manufacturing (either process improvements for reduction of impact or leveraging for product improvement) and product design?

And, what about trying to influence consumer behavior? Where does that fit in? It doesn’t necessarily mean less profitability! (I recall this as I sip my $3.50 latte from Peet’s Coffee!)

I intend to explore all this in the future articles in this series.

David Dornfeld is the Will C. Hall Family Chair in Engineering in Mechanical Engineering at University of California Berkeley. He leads the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability (LMAS), and he writes the Green Manufacturing blog.