Walmart

At a Glance

Industry

Retail and Apparel

Project Types

Engagement and Behavior Change, Goals/Targets, Supply Chain, Sustainability and Energy Management Strategy

Year

2020

Location

Bentonville, AR

Summary

Jessica Salgueiro developed a strategy to accelerate supplier engagement in Walmart’s Project Gigaton program.

Goals

Project Gigaton is Walmart’s commitment to avoid 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases from their supply chain by 2030. Since 2017, the program has achieved 230 million metric tons of emissions reductions reported by over 2,300 suppliers.  Walmart enlisted Jessica to review the agriculture and product use pillars to provide recommendations to deepen supplier engagement and increase the impact.

Solutions

Jessica approached the challenge using a three-part process: 

  • Identify suppliers to target. Through analysis of supplier-reported Project Gigaton data,  Jessica determined that Walmart should target the top 20 largest suppliers (based on sales) that had set a SMART goal and reported emissions reductions activity in one or of the other four program pillars, but NOT Agriculture or Product.

  • Gather supplier feedback. Jessica analyzed each supplier’s current engagement in Project Gigaton and developed customized participation recommendations.  She then met with each supplier to discuss their capacity for setting a SMART goal in the Agriculture or Product pillars and what challenges they faced in doing so. 

  • Develop recommendations for continued engagement. Based on supplier feedback, Jessica outlined a plan for Project Gigaton program improvements and supplier engagement tactics that Walmart could use to enable these suppliers to set SMART Agriculture and Product goals and begin reporting emissions savings.

Impact

Jessica’s recommendations will enable Walmart to more effectively manage their supplier relationships to accelerate meaningful emissions reductions activities, not only in Agriculture and Product Use and Design, but across all of their supplier-focused sustainability initiatives.


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