Walmart warns it will miss 2025 and 2030 targets as sales growth push up emissions

US retail giant Walmart’s recent emissions rise means that its 2025 target of reducing its operational carbon footprint by 35% is effectively out of reach.

The company quietly published a climate change update at the end of 2024, noting that Scope 1 and 2 emissions increased by 3.9% in 2023 “due to business growth and other factors”. 

Walmart’s operational emissions amounted to just over 15 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2023, and have been increasing annually since 2021’s historic low of around 14.5 million tonnes. 

At the same time, revenue has grown by nearly US$89 billion in the last three years, and the retailer’s carbon intensity gains have not been enough to offset the emissions associated with business growth.

(This is a conundrum faced by a wide majority of companies: see how Yum! Brands’ ‘unstoppable growth’ strategy is hindering its climate targets.)

”While we continue to work towards our aspirational goal of zero emissions by 2040, progress will not be linear; our trajectory and challenges related to energy policy, infrastructure and the availability of cost-effective low-carbon technologies will likely delay achievement of our interim 2025 and 2030 targets,” Walmart warned in a statement.

Walmart’s 2030 goals and supply chain targets

By 2030, the company was hoping to reduce operational emissions by 65% from a  2015 base year – a goal that also looks increasingly out of reach. So far, absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions have decreased by 19.3% compared to Walmart’s 2015 baseline.

The retailer is also aiming to power 50% of its operations with renewable energy by the end of 2025, and is on track to achieve this target: as of December 2023, 48% of global electricity needs were supplied by renewable sources.

Walmart doesn’t disclose Scope 3 emissions, but says it has successfully “reduced, avoided or sequestered” 1 billion metric tonnes of emissions across its supply chain since 2017 – meeting its ‘Project Gigaton’ six years ahead of its 2030 deadline.

“While we continue to work towards our goals, progress depends on many factors outside our control, including public policy, emergence and cost-effectiveness of low carbon technologies, and broad sectoral transitions in energy systems, transportation, materials, and agriculture,” the company added.