Walmart has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by percent from a baseline, meeting its target one year ahead of schedule. The metric applies to all facilities built before the baseline.
The announcement represents something of a turnaround for the company. At Walmart’s Sustainability Milestones Meeting, CEO Mike Duke announced that the retailer was on track to meet of its sustainability goals. The one goal that was not on track was the emissions reduction target, Bloomberg reports. By the end of Walmart had recorded an absolute greenhouse gas reduction from existing facilities of just . percent compared to its baseline.
Walmart’s use of green energy has been a significant factor in mee turkey phone number ting the emissions goal, according to Greg Trimble, the company’s senior director of global energy development and reporting, and the company has just announced new solar installations at stores in Ohio. The arrays will add about , MWh of generation production and are expected to supply about to percent of each store’s overall electricity use.
Walmart also just announced the installation of solar power arrays at three stores in Kahului, Kailua-Kona and Kapolei, Hawaii. The kW solar power rooftop system on each store will produce more than , kWh of solar electricity.
According to the EPA’s Green Power Partnership ranking, Walmart is the fifth-largest user of clean energy in the US. While just percent of its power comes from renewable sources, Walmart’s sheer scale means that that proportion translates to over , MWh of annual power usage.
Despite the emissions reduction at existing facilities, when accounting for expansion, the retail giant’s absolute emissions from Walmart stores, Sam’s Clubs, and distribution increased from around million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in to million tons in , the most recent year with published data, Bloomberg reports.
Furthermore, some environmentalists remain unconvinced by Walmart’s reported green progress. Stacy Mitchell of the Institute of Local Self-Reliance told Bloomberg that Walmart’s growth is “very bad for the environment.”
In February, Walmart announced plans to eliminate million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain by the end of .
The University of South Carolina recently revealed it will use the Walmart Sustainability Case Project, an in-depth analysis of the retailer’s effort to develop and implement zero waste goals, sell sustainable products and use percent renewable energy, to teach business students and executives about sustainability and business development.