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Accelerating Regeneration for a Decade of Action- by Walmart
At Walmart, regeneration means having a lasting, net-positive impact on people and the planet through the products, services and business practices. Walmart aims to do this by renewing, restoring and replenishing social and environmental systems, pursuing more sustainable practices, strengthening communities, generating economic opportunity and conducting themselves with ethics and integrity. As a critical part of this journey, sustainability efforts are designed to drive regenerative practices in agriculture, forest and fisheries management; eliminate waste along the product supply chain; decarbonize the operations and promote the dignity of people in supply chain.
“Our job is to design everything that we do in a way that the path of least resistance is the more sustainable or regenerative approach”.- Doug McMillon, President and CEO, Walmart Inc.
This week at the annual Sustainability Milestone Summit Walmart celebrated almost 20 years since they embarked on the sustainability journey and two years since the commitment to pursue regeneration
Zero emissions energy and transportation
Through innovations in energy and transportation, Walmart is striving to power 100% of global operations with renewable sources of energy by 2035 and achieve overall goal of zero emissions across global operations by 2040. Here are a few examples of the progress:
- In July of 2022, Walmart made a commitment to purchase 4,500 all-electric delivery vehicles from Canoo for delivering online orders with zero emissions.
- In 2021, an estimated 46% of Walmart’s global electricity needs were supplied by renewable sources.
Nature-based solutions
From tuna to rice Walmart is using place-based nature solutions to protect, restore and more sustainably manage landscapes and seascapes.
- In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Walmart’s Great Value tuna is now sourced from Pacific Island Tuna, with much of the profits returned to local communities for social and environmental initiatives.
- One million acres in the Northern Great Plains are being protected through an improved soil health initiative in collaboration with Northern Great Plains cattle ranchers, WWF and the Walmart Foundation.
- Since 2020, 16 ranches have joined.
- 150,000+ acres have enrolled in sustainable management.
- Avoiding at least an estimated 3.24 metric tons of emissions.
Breaking the link between consumption and waste
Creating a circular economy requires redesigning a system that breaks the link between consumption and waste.
- Walmart is on the road to building a circular economy, striving to achieve zero operational waste by 2025. Globally, we diverted 78% of operational waste from landfills and incineration in 2021.
- Walmart launched the Circular Connector as a first-of-its-kind platform to match circular packaging solutions with the manufacturers that need them the most—as of Sept. 30, 2022, we had already received 165 submissions.
- With a grant from Walmart Foundation, nonprofit Delterra will make Plastic IQ, a powerful tool used to measure a product’s dependence on plastic, available now to companies in Central America as well.
Advancing supplier sustainability & diversity
Walmart is expanding the supplier base by creating economic opportunities for diverse suppliers and smallholder farmers.
- Through Project Gigaton—Walmart’s initiative to reduce or avoid one billion metric tons of emission from the global value chain by 2030—Walmart is engaging over 4,500 suppliers on taking measurable action across climate, nature and waste. This year, Walmart has crossed the halfway mark toward the goal with suppliers reporting more than 574 million metric tons of emissions reduced or avoided globally.
- Since 2017, the Walmart Foundation has granted more than $67 million to benefit smallholder producers in Central America, India and Mexico:
- 730,000 smallholder farmers supported so far.
- More than 44% of farmers are women.
Source: Walmart
