Editor's note: I had hoped to actually complete this series last week, but my administrative duties got the best of me. So, here's part two on my trip to Bentonville, Arkansas, for Wal-Mart's media day and shareholders' meeting. You can find part one here.

After finishing up at Sam's Club, our next stop was the Bentonville Supercenter. Like the Sam's Club we visited, the Supercenter was fairly new: it had opened in May, 2005. Like the store we'd just come from, this one also sported ample skylights and bright white walls, and had a definite "upscale" feel. One of the executives who met us on the tour confirmed this was intentional for the particular store… a part of the company's "store of the community" concept.

That idea perked my ears up, of course — wouldn't a "store of the community" be carrying local foods and produce in the grocery section? That question was answered before I got to ask it: yes, a handful of produce items were purchased from local farmers. We also saw plenty of evidence of Wal-Mart's organics push as we walked through other areas of the store's grocery section.

At one stop, I was surprised to hear sustainability brought up: at the back of the store, we were introduced to Wal-Mart's "Site to store" program. Think Wal-Mart meets the long tail: thousands of items only available on the company's web site can be shipped to a Wal-Mart store with no shipping charges for the customer. I expected to hear about how such a program improved customer choice while still offering low prices, but the team from Wal-Mart.com also discussed how the program fits into the company's sustainability goals. Site to store items are shipped on trucks already bound for stores where the customers will pick them up; as such, they don't require the packaging needed if they were shipped by a parcel service. For individual items, of course, this probably doesn't add up to much, but, of course, Wal-Mart works on huge scale: the collective amount of fuel and packaging saved wasn't given, but one can imagine it's sizeable.

In housewares, we got to see a visual representation of the retailer's commitment to selling compact fluorescent light bulbs: there were several rows of shelves carrying the a wide variety of bulbs. An endcap display on one of these rows served to educate consumers about the energy-saving benefits of using CFLs, and also gave them the conversion values for the wattage of CFLs vs. incandescents.

Our tour ran out of time, and our visit to the electronics section was cut short… unfortunately, that meant we didn't get the hear the part of presentation on sustainability and electronics. I'll see what more I can find out on this front.

While our tour guides in other parts of the store didn't necessarily stress sustainability, I saw organic cotton highlighted on a number of displays in both clothing and home decorating sections. The notion of personal sustainability was also highlighted, particularly with health and wellness items. This concept isn't one that Wal-Mart just stresses to customers: thousands of associates have also committed to "personal sustainability projects" (PSPs) that involve improving their personal health and lightening their environmental footprint.

My question from the last post still remains, and surrounded by literally acres of merchandise, I still wondered about the pairing of consumption and sustainability. It's tempting to point at the retail giant and say "Look at all of this stuff you're selling… can we achieve true sustainability while hawking such a wide variety of goods?" I'm going to keep thinking on that, but, again, I invite your thoughts on the topic.

UPDATE: I found out yesterday that Wal-Mart has completed the roll-out of the Site to Store program to over 3300 stores throughout the US. Now, I can tell you how much fuel and packaging is saved by this program: according to the company's press release, "As a result of transportation and packaging efficiencies, 1,000 gallons of gasoline are saved each week and 20,000 fewer boxes are used each month."