(Credit: Pixabay)Walmart and Schneider Electric have announced a new collaboration that will provide increased access to renewable energy for Walmart's US-based suppliers. The initiative, termed the "Gigaton PPA (GPPA) Program," is designed to educate Walmart suppliers about renewable energy purchases and accelerate renewable energy adoption by participating suppliers through aggregate power purchase agreements (PPA).
The program is part of Walmart's Project Gigaton, which aims to avoid one gigaton (one billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide from Walmart's global value chain by 2030. To date, more than 2,300 suppliers from 50 countries are participating in Project Gigaton. Suppliers have reported a cumulative 230 million metric tons of avoided emissions since 2017 — more than 20% of the goal — through energy, waste, packaging, agriculture, forests, and product use and design.
According to Walmart, the GPPA initiative was designed to help overcome barriers to renewable energy, making it possible for more companies to learn about energy purchases, access renewable energy, reduce emissions and increase their ability to contribute towards Project Gigaton. The GPPA program works by educating participants on the renewable energy market, providing guidance on the projects, and bringing together interested companies to contract for renewable energy as a cohort, leveraging the size of the group to achieve an economy of scale.
The company has collaborated with Schneider Electric's Energy & Sustainability Services (ESS) to run the GPPA Program, utilizing Schneider Electric's NEO Network, a global collaboration platform and community of more than 300 corporate renewable energy purchasers and solution providers. Schneider Electric's team of renewable energy experts will work with participating Walmart suppliers and facilitate a multi-phase education and project selection process to advance supplier progress towards the execution of aggregated renewable energy purchases.
Just this month, it was reported that Walmart’s suppliers avoided 136 million metric tons of emissions last year alone, according to the retailer’s 2020 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report.
