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At a time when other pressing problems — warfare in Europe and the Middle East, high food prices, and the promise and peril of generative AI among them — have diluted the sense of urgency to address climate change, it’s heartening to see a major private sector initiative, designed to reduce greenhouse gases, come to fruition — and six years ahead of schedule. Last month, Walmart announced that, in conjunction with supplier partners, it has succeeded in cutting or sequestering a billion metric tons of carbon.
Launched in 2017, Project Gigaton focuses on Scope 3 emissions, defined as sources of carbon indirectly generated by a given enterprise. Since that time, Walmart’s merchant team and CPG suppliers tackled the problem on a project-by-project basis, according to chief sustainability officer Kathleen McLaughlin, who is also president of the Walmart Foundation. Those efforts led to progress in reducing carbon emissions across the value chain, with measurable improvements resulting from such steps as making more efficient use of energy, redesigning product packaging and cutting food waste.
“Although we have achieved our 1 gigaton goal, we will continue Project Gigaton — because as a society we have a long way to go,” says McLaughlin. “Building a net zero emissions future will require a massive transition in our world’s energy and transport systems, materials, and infrastructure.”
The entire private sector needs to adopt that attitude if the most severe consequences of climate change are to be averted. Already overwhelming, evidence supporting the need to mitigate climate change continues to mount. The latest synthesis report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels and other human activity is growing. Global temperatures have already risen 2 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, unleashing a host of threats to the well-being of humans, other species and the environment. One need look no further than the weather, with more frequent incidence of extreme temperatures, powerful storms, floods and drought, to realize what is occurring.
Time to take remedial action is running short. But IPCC asserts that the worst-case scenario can be avoided and “we can still secure a livable sustainable future for all” if the rise in global temperature is limited to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Achieving that goal won’t be easy. To do so, initiatives like Walmart’s Project Gigaton should become a model for other businesses to emulate.
