Walmart Canada joins Project Gigaton

Walmart Canada is joining Project Gigaton, the retailer's global effort to reduce emissions from supply chains.

Launched by Walmart in the U.S. in 2017, Project Gigaton seeks to reduce emissions by a gigaton--or equivalent to the reduction of the emissions from 211 million average passenger vehicles in a year--by 2030. To date, more than 1,000 suppliers from 40 countries have signed on to the project and helped conserve 93 million metric tons of emissions.

In Canada, more than 200 Walmart suppliers including Maple Leaf Foods, Unilever Canada and Agropur have signed on to the project with new or existing emissions-reduction programs.

Project Gigaton is one in a number of sustainability efforts Walmart is undertaking in Canada. The retailer is ramping up its efforts around food waste, for instance. While Walmart has had the aspirational target of zero waste to landfill since 2005, it recently renewed its sustainability targets and has now set a deadline of 2025 to achieve the goal.

Despite the steps taken to reduce its environmental footprints, Walmart president and CEO Lee Tappenden said there is still work to be done. "Through Project Gigaton, we will work in a collaborative fashion with suppliers, environmental groups and other key stakeholders in our collective pursuit of seeking to avoid one billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from global value chains by 2030," he said in a press release.