Retail giant Walmart announced today that it has achieved its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by one billion metric tons across its product supply chain, reaching the historic milestone 6 years ahead of its 2030 target.
The goal was initially set by Walmart in 2017 at the launch of the company's Project Gigaton, its initiative to engage suppliers, as well as NGOs and other stakeholders, in climate action to reduce or avoid a gigaton of GHG emissions from the global value chain. from Walmart. by 2030. Walmart reported that, to date, more than 5,900 suppliers have joined the initiative.
In a conference call discussing the company's fiscal 2024 earnings, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon highlighted the achievement. McMillon said:
“In 2017, we announced a bold ambition to work with our suppliers to reduce, avoid or sequester one gigaton, or one billion metric tons, of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. We called it Project Gigaton. Our traders and suppliers got to work and made investments in practical things like energy efficiency, packaging redesign and load optimization. We have reported steady progress since then and are excited to say that our suppliers have now reported projects surpassing the 1 billion metric ton mark six years in advance.”
Under Project Gigaton, Walmart asked suppliers to set emissions reduction targets and take action to reduce emissions in six key areas, including energy use, nature, waste, packaging, transportation and product use and design. The initiative is designed to accommodate suppliers at various levels of readiness and capacity to reduce emissions, working with early stage suppliers to set targets in one of six categories to more advanced companies working across multiple categories.
In recent years, Walmart has announced a number of initiatives and partnerships to help support its supply chain emissions reduction goal, including the launch of the Gigaton PPA with Schneider Electric, aimed at educating suppliers about purchasing renewable energy and accelerate the adoption of renewable energy through aggregate energy purchasing. (PPAs), as well as establishing a supply chain finance program with HSBC and CDP, encouraging and helping suppliers to set science-based emissions reduction targets and achieve CDP environmental scores.
In a post highlighting the achievement, Walmart Chief Sustainability Officer and President of the Walmart Foundation Kathleen McLaughlin said the company is working to improve and expand Project Gigaton, with targeted actions including improving its estimates of its footprint on the Scope 3, assessing which elements of your value chain's emissions are tractable and beyond your control, and identifying emissions reductions that can be achieved through low-cost interventions, as well as those that are expensive or unfeasible with current technology.
McLaughlin said:
“We hope Project Gigaton continues to set the standard for corporate climate action – because a more sustainable supply chain is more resilient. A more resilient supply chain is not just better for our business, it’s better for people, communities and the planet.”
