Walmart sets new sustainability goals

Walmart is reaffirming its commitment to battle climate change with a goal to achieve zero emissions across the company’s worldwide operations by 2040, without the use of carbon offsets.

In a press release issued Monday, Walmart said it intended to achieve these goals by:

• Harvesting enough wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to run its facilities with 100% renewable energy by 2035.


• Electrifying and zeroing out emissions from all of its vehicles, among them long-haul trucks, by 2040.


• Switching to low-impact refrigerants for cooling and electrified equipment for heating in its stores, clubs, and data and distribution centres by 2040.

Additionally, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are pledging to help protect, manage or restore a minimum of 50 million acres of land and 1 million square miles of ocean by 2030 to conserve nature under threat.

READ: Walmart's war on waste

Walmart said it would continue support efforts to preserve at least one acre of natural habitat for every acre of land developed by the company in the U.S., and encouraging the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices, sustainable fisheries management, and forest protection and restoration.

To date, Walmart powers about 29% of its operations with renewable energy and diverts around 80% of its waste from landfills and incineration worldwide. Since most of Walmart's environmental impact comes from its supply chain, the retailer is collaborating with suppliers through its Project Gigaton initiative to avoid a gigaton of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Since the effort began in 2017, suppliers have reported a collective 230 million metric tons of avoided emissions.

A version of this article appeared at ProgressiveGrocer.com.