Wal-Mart's $1 billion problem

By BusinessWeek

Wal-Mart is the nation's largest private energy user. Each of the discount giant's 2,074 supercenters uses an average of 1.5 million kilowatt-hours per year; combined, that's enough to power Chile.

The 3,800-store chain's annual power bill tops out at about $1 billion.

Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott aims to change that with an aggressive green building campaign. In 2005, he outlined a corporate plan to cut store energy use by 30% and reduce waste by 25% over the next three years, investing $500 million a year in sustainable innovations in new construction.

Correspondingly, Wal-Mart (WMT, news, msgs) opened 200,000-square-foot stores in Aurora, Colo., and McKinney, Texas, as test laboratories for these broader applications, and in mid-November the company posted the first year's data collection.

LED lighting is one technology the company will deploy more widely, for example. Those lights will replace fluorescent tubes in freezer and display cases, resulting in 50% energy savings and longer life expectancies.

Roof-mounted solar panels and wind turbines have yielded less successful results, however, and require further evaluation before being used on a broad scale.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will monitor the two stores for two more years before Wal-Mart determines which items will be used in future building plans.

Bringing suppliers on board

Regarding other potential applications, Don Moseley, Wal-Mart's special-projects engineer, says, "There are high hopes for evaporative cooling, waterless urinals, composting of organic materials and many other concepts, and each are being carefully studied, evaluated and in some cases incorporated into additional 'test' environments in more prototypical stores."

Native landscaping, waterless urinals and electronic sensor sinks decreased water use by 85% at the McKinney store, for example, although installation at standard-issue stores will likely differ.

While testing continues, Wal-Mart will begin integrating sustainable components of its experimental stores into new stores during the first part of 2007. It's also initiating a preference program for its 60,000 suppliers to set their own environmental goals.

This article was reported and written by the staff at Architectural Record and published by BusinessWeek.