Big box for better tomorrow?

In the 12 months preceding March 15th, Wal-Mart was the company most linked-to in posts about corporate sustainability, reports Environmental Leader (via MarketingCharts).

Of 356,000 posts on sustainability, Wal-Mart was linked in 1.77 percent. Whole Foods was mentioned in 1.66 percent, but the Whole Foods PR team has also issued one-fifth as many press releases on the topic as Wal-Mart has.

Starbucks comes in third, linked in 1.26 percent of posts on the topic.

The results, which come from Nielsen BuzzMetrics, differ significantly from a previous survey on the subject. Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe's were listed as companies most associated with sustainability by respondents to the 2007 ImagePower Green Brands Survey, conducted by WPP’s Landor Associates, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates and Cohn & Wolfe. Wal-Mart did not appear on the list at all.

The topic of sustainability itself is seeing a surge of popularity, with appearances on blogs that don't deal with the issue regularly. Online mentions are up 110 percent from March 2006 to March 2007.