Retail

Walmart Canada – Energy

Challenge

Walmart Canada, as well as all global Walmart operations, is committed to being supplied 100% by renewable energy.

Finding new, clean sources of power (such as wind and solar power) is an important part of achieving this goal. We are also looking for ways to use less energy in our day-to-day operations. Conservation is the least expensive form of new energy. It’s cheaper to find ways to reduce energy use than it is to build new power plants or use peak energy to handle demand spikes. Peak energy sources of power tend to be the most expensive to produce.

Our challenge was to find new energy-saving technologies that we could install in our stores so that they would use less power in their daily operations.

Strategy

Our strategy was simple. Fill one building with as many energy-saving and environment-friendly technologies as possible, then test and analyze each measure, then go forward with the ones which worked most efficiently and had a favourable return on investment (ROI).

Our environmental test store in Burlington, which opened in January 2009, has the following technologies.

• Geothermal heating and cooling. Facilitated by 15 km of piping buried horizontally under the parking lot

• Daylight harvesting system using skylights to refract daylight throughout store. Light sensors monitor amount of natural light available and rise, dim or turn off lighting as needed

• In-floor radiant heating and cooling system circulates water to transfer heat and cold instead of air vents – requiring less electricity

• Environmentally-preferable CO2 refrigeration system that reduces our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

• Heat from refrigeration system captured and reused to heat store

• Energy-saving motion-activated LED lights in refrigerator and freezer cases

• Low-wattage parking lot lights and LED external signs reduce energy use

• White roof membrane deflects sunlight by approximately 85 per cent to reduce heat gain in summer and demand on the electrical grid

• Increased insulation on the roof reduces heat and cooling loss

Result

“We’re determined to build the greenest stores on the block, and our Burlington store puts us one step closer. We remain committed to being green, not only for the good of the environment, but for the long-term sustainability of our business. There’s a tremendous opportunity to reduce our construction and operating costs and pass those savings on to our customers, who are looking for lower prices now more than ever.” – David Cheesewright, president and CEO, Walmart Canada

The Burlington store has been open for just over a year. Initial reports indicate that the store is achieving approximately 42 per cent energy efficiency. After studying the final numbers, we expect this supercentre to use an estimated 60 per cent less energy than our typical supercentre store and to reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 141 tonnes.

ROI: Less heating, cooling and lighting energy used to operate the store on a day-to-day basis results in lower operating costs over the long-term.

For more information about this sustainability initiative, or others, please contact:

Andrew Telfer

Manager, Sustainability

Walmart Canada

905-821-2111 x 4643

atelfer@wal-mart.com