New Delhi, 11 July, 2018: Walmart India, the wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart Inc., has pledged to remove single-use shrink wrap used for storing merchandise and replace it with sustainable storage solutions across all its Best Price Modern Wholesale Stores in India in a phased manner.
The company has already started the drive in its Best Price Stores in Maharashtra and is expanding this initiative across its stores in rest of India in a phased manner.
With this initiative, Walmart India will be contributing to the realization of the Government’s vision to completely eliminate all single-use plastic in the country by 2022.
Talking about the company’s sustainability initiatives, Krish Iyer, President & CEO, Walmart India, said, “Leading on social and environmental issues and running sustainable stores is more than just a matter of philanthropy for Walmart India. It is woven into the day-to-day business activities, and this initiative reiterates the commitment. We recognize that plastic pollution is a critical issue. We also recognize that this is the joint responsibility of all – citizens, industry and government, among others, to curb plastic waste. Through this project, our endeavor is to phase out single-use plastic shrink wrap from our company’s stores across India by first quarter of 2019.”
Walmart India is committed to managing and running its store operations sustainably by leveraging solar energy, water harvesting and recycling and energy efficient solutions. It is working with partners, to achieve significant and lasting improvement in environmental and social outcomes, in a way that also improves our business. The company has retrofitted the lighting systems in all its stores with LED lights. This has reduced the stores’ electricity demand by 15-20 percent. In addition, it has pledged to meet a large part of its energy needs through renewable energy. Towards this, it has completed the installation of rooftop solar panels in 17 of our Best Price stores and these are already meeting 33 percent of the store’s energy needs. Walmart India expects that solar energy will provide 40 to 50 percent of its energy needs within the next two years. It has set aggressive goal to have 100% renewable energy in our stores in few years.
As part of its ‘Bio-degradable Waste Management Project’, Walmart India installed the waste composting machine at its Best Price store in Hyderabad, making it the first store in India to be able to dispose of waste generated at the store responsibly. The waste would be recycled and reused for the green area on store premises. The waste composting machine has a capacity of handling 50 kg of waste per day and will be able to manage all the bio-waste generated at the store every day. These machines are being installed in all our stores gradually.
Walmart India has been delighting around one million members, especially Kiranas & other small businesses since it opened its first store in the country in 2009. The company has been striving to create `shared value’ for its members, local suppliers, small farmers, employees and the community. It has been contributing to the national and local economies through employment generation, setting up sustainable stores, by establishing inter-regional supply chain network, developing SME suppliers, sourcing directly from farmers, enhancing women’s economic empowerment and the community at large.
