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One of the world's largest corporations with 7,873 retail outlets worldwide, Alliance Associate Wal-Mart takes the business of carbon emissions reductions very seriously.
According to Wal-Mart's 2009 Global Sustainability Report, the company emitted around 53 tons of emissions for every $1 million in sales in 2008, down from 55 tons in 2007 and 58 tons in 2006. Furthermore, Wal-Mart is on track to continue reducing its emissions-to-sales ratio in 2009.
Called Sustainability 360, Wal-Mart's strategy is to "make sustainability sustainable," says its president and CEO Mike Duke. Like most corporate initiatives aiming to reduce emissions without burdening budgets, Wal-Mart's sustainability goals utilize energy efficiency in tandem with renewable energy technologies, green product develpment and environmentally conscious training in the workplace.
In 2008, for example, Wal-Mart increased vehicle fleet efficiency by 25 percent and continued energy efficiency retrofit programs for its existing building stock. The company also undertook LED lighting retrofits of low- and medium-temperature refrigerated display cases in over 500 stores in the country.
Sustainability is part of business plans for Wal-Marts all over the world. In its home country, the company has increased fleet efficiency by 38 percent since 2005; Wal-Mart's goal is to double its U.S. fleet efficiency by 2015. In 2009, Wal-Mart plans to open a store prototype that is 25 to 30 percent more efficient.
Abroad, Wal-Mart is working with its foreign branches and suppliers to increase sustainability; already it has made considerable progress in efficiency improvements in China, Canada, Japan, Mexico and Brazil.
If a lesson can be drawn from Wal-Mart's approach to sustainability, it is that sustainability and growth are not mutually exclusive. For Duke, the two are inextricably interlinked; he considers achieving carbon reductions through energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies an integral component to the company's success. "We can't afford not to," he says. "We need to accelerate and broaden our efforts."
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