LED lights helped Walmart cut $100 million in costs over 10 years

With energy costs typically being one of the company’s largest operating expenses, this energy initiative has over the past decade reduced lighting consumption and helped trim costs by roughly $100 million.

“Energy is one of the key operating expenses that we can reduce while delivering system upgrades that improve the customer shopping experience,” said Mark Vanderhelm, Walmart’s vice president of energy. “The ripple effect from these LED conversions throughout the business is truly staggering. We believe that by continuing to reduce one of our biggest operating expenses, we’re supporting future innovation and delivering on our promise of Every Day Low Prices.”

The LED initiative began about 10 years ago with refrigeration-display lighting and has come to include parking-lot and interior lighting. Walmart is also moving aggressively to complete LED and other controls retrofits at all its distribution centers in the U.S., as well as rolling out a program to replace all other forms of overhead lighting with LED.

The company says this effort toward energy efficiency has cut energy use per square foot by about 12 percent since 2010. The LED investments are part of Walmart's overall plan to reduce emissions by roughly 18 percent (from 2015 levels) between now and 2025. These moves include renewable energy sourcing as well as improvements in refrigeration systems and fleet efficiency.

Walmart operates roughly 11,600 stores under nearly 60 banners across 28 countries.