Indirect Scope 3 emissions can account for 90-98% of retailers’ total emissions, according to the National Retail Federation. To demonstrate how retailers are reducing their supply chain emissions, we’ve profiled a firm that has recently achieved its reductions target six years early.
Who
Walmart, a multinational retail firm that operates a chain of over 10,000 stores.
What particular challenges do they face?
Walmart has set a goal to reach net zero emissions by 2040, including reducing its supply chain emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030. One of the main challenges to achieving this goal was the scale of the operation, as the business has 100,000 suppliers worldwide that differ in size and maturity level. According to the firm’s 2022 CDP responses, Scope 3 emissions constituted 93.5% of its footprint, of which 81% was from upstream activities.
What did they do?
Walmart announced in February 2024, six years earlier than the target year, that its suppliers had reported projects expected to exceed 1 billion metric tonnes of emissions reduced, avoided or sequestered. Over 5,900 suppliers participated in ‘Project Gigaton’, which the firm launched in 2017. As Walmart announced it had reached halfway towards its target in April 2022, progress has accelerated in the past year and a half.
How did they do it?
To achieve its goal, Walmart took the following clear actions:
- Communicated with suppliers to encourage early action and continuous improvement. Walmart asked suppliers to set emissions reduction goals from the project outset and shared best practices to support them along the way, including ‘Giga Guru’ status achievements.
- Collaborated with Schneider Electric to provide access to ‘Gigaton PPA’, allowing suppliers to participate in aggregate utility-scale power purchase agreements (PPAs). The Gigaton PPA programme offered renewable energy market education and guidance for suppliers and, by bringing firms together into cohorts, helped smaller firms access PPAs.
- Worked with HSBC to launch a sustainable supply chain finance programme to offer early payment to suppliers setting science-based targets or achieving a CDP score threshold.
Where you can find out more:
To read more about Walmart’s project gigaton success, check out its press release.
And for information on Scope 3 emissions reduction challenges and innovations, take a look at our Verdantix Strategic Focus: Carbon Management Innovation Takes Aim At Scope 3 Emissions Challenges.
