US retail giant Walmart has said it will no longer meet some of its ESG targets, despite making slight progress in other areas. In its latest climate report, the company said that while it continues to work toward the “ambitious goal of net zero emissions by 2040, progress will not be linear.”
Walmart cited its “past trajectory and challenges related to energy policy, infrastructure and the availability of cost-effective low-carbon technologies” as reasons for the delay in achieving its interim targets for 2025 (35 percent emissions reduction) and 2030 (65 percent emissions reduction).
However, at the end of 2023, operational emissions (Scope 1 and 2) fell by 19.3 percent compared to the base year 2015, while carbon intensity fell by 45 percent over the same period. Still, Walmart’s emissions rose 3.9 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year due to “business growth and other factors.”
The company highlighted that it continues to expand its on-site and off-site renewable energy portfolio, with 48 percent of its global electricity demand coming from renewable sources in 2023, in line with targets.
It should also be noted that in February 2024, Walmart met its goal of requiring suppliers to reduce, eliminate, or sequester one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in their product value chains. This was in relation to the Scope 3 targets approved by the SBTi as part of the company’s Project Gigaton.