Walmart announced its fourth-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2025. The e-commerce giant achieved a record-breaking revenue of $680.985 billion, surpassing its previous year’s performance. This equates to an average daily income of about $1.86 billion.
Amid this financial success, how will Walmart move toward its climate and net zero goals?
Profits Soar While Sustainability Goals Stall?
Walmart posted adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.66 and revenue of $180.55 billion for Q4. This exceeded analyst predictions of $0.64 EPS and $180.31 billion in revenue.
The company’s growth was significantly driven by its online business, which saw a 16% increase in sales during the 4th quarter. Despite a 4.1% rise in sales for the quarter, net profit experienced a slight decline of 4.4%, amounting to $5.254 billion.
Comparable sales for Walmart U.S. increased by 4.6%, driven by a 16% growth in global e-commerce. Additionally, the giant retailer’s advertising sector reported a robust 29% growth.
The company’s competitive pricing strategy attracted a diverse customer base. These include higher-income shoppers seeking value amid economic uncertainties.
However, the largest retailer is being careful about the next fiscal year. They expect only slight sales growth and earnings per share that could be as much as 27 cents lower than what analysts predicted. This cautious outlook stems from possible consumer reluctance and the effects of tariffs on imports from China and elsewhere.
Following the announcement, Walmart’s shares experienced a decline of up to 7.8%. Analysts worry about a potential drop in consumer spending. This concern comes from post-holiday spending trends and inflation caused by protectionist trade policies.
Walmart faces challenges, but it stays focused. It uses its size to improve online and in-store options, helping it keep its edge in retail.
Analysts are still hopeful about Walmart’s market share growth and solid business trends. They do have worries about e-commerce profits and ongoing investments. The company focuses on competitive pricing. This strategy attracts many customers and helps it thrive in an uncertain economy.
But how does the e-commerce giant advance its sustainability and climate goals? Its latest report says Walmart is lagging behind its climate targets. Let’s take a closer look at the company’s sustainability efforts.
Walmart’s Net Zero and Sustainability Initiatives
Walmart continues to show commitment to environmental impact. So, it has started many initiatives to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and boost sustainability in its operations and supply chain.
Commitment to Net Zero Emissions
In 2020, Walmart announced its ambitious goal to achieve zero emissions across its global operations by 2040. This commitment encompasses a comprehensive strategy that does not rely on carbon offsets. To reach this objective, the company has outlined several key focus areas:
- Renewable Energy Transition: Walmart aims to power 100% of its global operations with renewable energy sources by 2035. By 2024, the company stated that about 36% of its operations used renewable energy. This shows steady progress toward its goal.
- Fleet Electrification: Transportation is a significant contributor to GHG emissions. Walmart has set a target to electrify its entire vehicle fleet, including long-haul trucks, by 2040. This initiative is expected to substantially decrease emissions associated with product distribution and logistics.
RELATED: Amazon’s $1 Billion Move Towards Net Zero: Logistics Electrification Across Europe
Project Gigaton: Supply Chain Emission Reductions
Walmart knows that much of its carbon footprint comes from its supply chain. So, in 2017, it started Project Gigaton. This program seeks to engage suppliers in the collective goal of reducing or avoiding 1 billion metric tons (a gigaton) of GHG emissions by 2030. The initiative focuses on several key areas:
- Energy Efficiency: Encouraging suppliers to adopt energy-efficient practices and technologies to minimize emissions.
- Sustainable Agriculture: Promoting farming practices that reduce environmental impact and enhance carbon sequestration.
- Waste Reduction: Use strategies to cut waste during the product lifecycle. This starts from manufacturing and goes to end-of-life disposal.
In February 2024, Walmart said it met its Project Gigaton goal 6 years early. It cut, avoided, or captured one billion metric tons of CO₂e emissions from its supply chain. This milestone underscores the effectiveness of collaborative efforts in driving substantial environmental impact.
As of the latest reports, over 3,100 suppliers have now joined the project. They are helping to reduce emissions significantly.
By 2023, Walmart reduced operational emissions by 19.3% from its 2015 baseline, with a 45% decline in carbon intensity. However, a 3.9% rise in annual emissions that year has led the company to delay its predetermined reduction targets.
Other major sustainability efforts of Walmart include:
Circular Economy
Walmart wants to promote a circular economy. They aim to cut waste and boost the reuse and recycling of materials. The company has set a goal to achieve zero waste in its operations in key markets, including the U.S., by 2025. Initiatives include:
- optimizing packaging,
- increasing the recyclability of private-brand products, and
- collaborating with suppliers to minimize waste throughout the product lifecycle.
Sustainable Product Sourcing
Ensuring that products are sourced responsibly is integral to Walmart’s sustainability efforts. The company aims to source key commodities by 2025. These include palm oil, beef, soy, pulp, paper, and timber. All must be free from deforestation. This means working together with suppliers.
The retailer established clear sourcing standards. They also support sustainable farming and forestry efforts.
Collaborative Efforts and Advocacy
Walmart understands that addressing climate change requires collective action. The company works with different coalitions and partners to promote sustainability in retail and beyond.
Walmart wants to make a bigger impact. It does this by sharing best practices, supporting policies, and engaging stakeholders.
Challenges and Future Outlook: Balancing Profit Margins with Green Initiatives
Walmart has faced challenges in reaching its interim climate and net zero goals, despite its ambitious plans. In December 2024, the company said it won’t meet its goals.
- It expects to fall short of cutting operational GHG emissions by 35% by 2025 and 65% by 2030.
Several factors cause this shortfall. First, some low-carbon technologies are not available. Others are too expensive, especially in refrigeration and transportation. Second, there are limits to their clean energy infrastructure and policies.
Walmart tackles these challenges by investing in new ideas. They also work with industry partners, policymakers, and tech developers. The company works hard to speed up the development and use of sustainable technologies. It also wants to improve energy efficiency and support policies that help move us toward a low-carbon economy.
In summary, while Walmart has made significant strides in its financial performance, the path to achieving its long-term net zero goals requires more effort, innovation, and collaboration. The company takes a proactive stance and values transparency, making it a leader in corporate sustainability. It works hard to grow its business while also being responsible for its environmental footprint.
The post Walmart Reveals Record-Breaking Q4 Revenue But Net Zero Goals Lag Behind appeared first on Carbon Credits.
The accounting differences that decide whether your nature investment shows up in inventory, in BVCM, or nowhere at all.
The question reaches a procurement team about three weeks before the next sustainability committee meeting. Someone has read about insetting. Someone else has just signed off on an offset purchase. The CSO wants to know if the two are interchangeable. The answer is no, and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard is the reason why.
This article walks through what each term means at audit-grade specificity, what the standards actually say about how each gets counted, and how to decide which tool fits which target. The insetting vs offsetting question is one of the most-searched in corporate climate strategy, and one of the most poorly answered. By the end of this piece, you should be able to brief a committee on the difference without notes.
The two definitions, in plain English
Offsetting means buying carbon credits generated outside your value chain and retiring them against your residual emissions. The reduction happens somewhere else, financed by you, and the credit is the receipt.
Insetting means investing in emission reductions or removals inside your own value chain, typically with suppliers, where the reduction is directly linked to the products and services you buy. The reduction happens inside the boundary of your Scope 3 inventory, and the accounting treatment is fundamentally different.
The shorthand from the University of Oxford’s Nature-based Insetting Initiative is useful: insetting is what you do with the supply chain you have; offsetting is what you do with the supply chain you do not have.
What the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard actually says
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, finalised in 2024 after a multi-year pilot, sets the rules for how land-based emission reductions and removals enter corporate inventories. The Standard distinguishes between inventory accounting (Scope 1, 2, and 3) and project or intervention accounting (a separate methodology for crediting).
For insetting, the practical implication is that supplier-level interventions, when properly measured and attributed, can reduce your Scope 3 category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions in your inventory. The reduction is not a credit retired against the inventory; it is a lower inventory number, period.
For offsetting, the credit is retired separately. It can be reported as a contribution toward a net-zero claim under the SBTi Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework or as part of a VCMI Carbon Integrity claim, but it does not lower the inventory number.
A practical consequence: if your Science Based Target requires a 50% absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, insetting moves you toward the target. Offsetting does not. This single point of difference reshapes the procurement decision.
When insetting counts toward Scope 3 (and when it does not)
Insetting counts toward Scope 3 only when several conditions are met:
- The intervention must occur with an entity in your value chain.
- The emissions reduction or removal must be measured against a defensible baseline.
- The reduction must be attributed to your share of that supplier’s output, not double-counted with other buyers.
- It must follow the inventory accounting rules in the GHG Protocol Land Sector Standard, not the project accounting rules used to generate credits.
The most common failure mode is double counting. If your supplier sells the same reduction as a credit on the voluntary market and also reports it to you as a Scope 3 reduction, the math breaks. The Standard requires you to address this risk, typically by purchasing and retiring the supplier-issued credit as part of your inventory or by contractual provisions that prevent the supplier from selling the reduction twice.
When insetting does not count toward Scope 3: when the intervention sits with a supplier you do not buy from, when the baseline is not defensible, when the attribution is unclear, or when the documentation does not survive audit. Those cases default to Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, which is still useful but operates on a different ledger.
The procurement and supplier engagement question
Insetting is harder than offsetting. That is the unfashionable truth most buyers eventually confront. Offsetting is a transaction; insetting is a relationship.
To run an insetting program, you need supplier mapping precise enough to know which farms or facilities sit at which Scope 3 boundary. You need an engagement model that gets suppliers to participate, which usually requires multi-year commitments and shared economics. You need an MRV architecture that measures the right things and produces audit-ready documentation. And you need a contractual structure that prevents double counting and protects both sides.
The trade-off you receive in return is significant. Reductions count against your inventory rather than your residual. Supplier relationships deepen, which protects sourcing continuity. Yield and quality improvements often follow regenerative interventions, which reduces your input cost over time. And the regulatory file, under CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and the SBTi FLAG Guidance, is materially stronger.
Choosing the right tool for the right target
A practical decision rule. If your target is a science-based Scope 3 reduction and you operate in a FLAG sector or source FLAG commodities, insetting is the structurally correct tool. If your target is a net-zero claim that includes neutralising hard-to-abate residual emissions outside your value chain, BVCM via high-integrity offsets is the structurally correct tool. Most companies with material Scope 3 exposure need both, in different proportions, sequenced over time.
The sequencing matters. Insetting takes longer to stand up but produces a permanent reduction in the inventory. Offsetting can be transacted faster but does not change the inventory and now sits under tighter claim restrictions. Treat them as complementary tools with different jobs, not as substitutes. The Accountability Framework Initiative and the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions both provide useful guardrails for the insetting side, with biodiversity, human rights, and benefit-sharing requirements that go beyond carbon math.
If you are mapping a Scope 3 reduction roadmap and need to scope which interventions count toward your inventory versus which sit in Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you structure a nature-based supply chain investment program that fits your FLAG exposure, your target architecture, and your audit horizon. Schedule a consultation.
Net zero is often described as a balancing act: cut what you can, account for the rest, and reach zero on the ledger. That framing is useful, but it leaves something out. It treats every tonne of carbon as interchangeable and every route to zero as equally sound, while the science tells a more specific story.
Malawi has lost a striking share of its forests over the past three decades. Woodlands that once covered well over a third of the country now cover less than a quarter, and the pressure on what remains is increasing. Behind those figures sit two practical questions: what is driving the loss, and what reverses it?
-
Climate Change1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy10 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits