In 2020, Walmart and Schneider Electric launched the Gigaton Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to reduce one gigaton of greenhouse emissions from the global value chain by 2020. The PPA will increase Walmart suppliers’ access to the renewable energy market. Over the past two years, the program provided educational resources to 250 suppliers.
Recently, five suppliers signed the PPA. They include Amy’s Kitchen, Great Lakes Cheese, Levi Strauss & Co., The J.M. Smucker Co. and Valvoline Inc. These suppliers signed an aggregated purchase of renewable energy from Orsted’s Sunflower Wind Farm in Kansas. The 12-year agreement is expected to generate around 250,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy.
Walmart’s senior director of sustainability Zach Freeze said the PPA fits the company’s overall sustainability goals. On the strategic side, Walmart has been working to find ways to encourage suppliers to join its sustainability journey since 2005. On the accountability aspect, the program will help Walmart achieve zero waste to the landfill and meet 100% of its energy requirements from renewables.
Though five suppliers seem like a drop in the bucket for Walmart, which has thousands of suppliers, Freeze believes that the “muscle they have created with the first PPA can be replicated for other suppliers. He also mentioned that while other suppliers are not participating in the PPA, more than 4,500 have joined Project Gigaton.
