Wal-Mart exec touts sustainability efforts

That was the message from Don Moseley, special projects engineer for Wal-Mart, during a presentation at Drury University’s Hammons School of Architecture Wednesday.

Moseley, who managed the design of the company’s experimental energy-conserving stores in Texas and Colorado, told the crowd of architecture students and interested onlookers about some of the items Wal-Mart is incorporating into the prototype design for its new stores, as well as items that are being retrofit into existing stores.

One example: replacing traditional fluorescent bulbs in freezer cases with LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. Some stores are also being fitted with motion sensors for those lights, so that during low-traffic periods, the lights will stay off unless a customer enters that aisle.

The lighting change, which is now part of the company’s prototype for all of its stores – Wal-Mart stores, Supercenters, Sam’s Clubs and Neighborhood Markets – also is slowly being incorporated into all of the company’s 3,900 existing U.S. stores.

While the change to LEDs may seem small, Moseley said it could save as much as 3 percent on a store’s total electric bill – a savings of nearly $50 million if implemented in all U.S. stores.

Bigger changes are also in the works – the company opened its first high-efficiency Supercenter in Kansas City in January. The store consumes 20 percent less energy than the average Supercenter through the use of advanced heating, cooling and refrigeration systems.

It’s all part of CEO Lee Scott’s “Sustainability 360” initiative. One of the goals of that program is to reduce energy consumption by 20 percent in existing stores by 2011, and to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas production by 30 percent in newly built stores by 2009.