What changes has Wal-Mart made to its stores to become more environmentally friendly?
What spurred these changes? A: We are committed to designing a store prototype that is 25 percent to 30 percent more efficient by 2009, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in existing stores by 20 percent by 2012. We have two experimental stores, one in Aurora, Colo. and another in McKinney, Texas, that are living laboratories where we test new technologies and products that we can potentially incorporate into all of our stores. Some tested technologies from our experimental stores like LED lighting are already making their way into stores across the country, both at Wal-Mart stores and the facilities of our competitors. Other examples include the use efficiencies from the motors in our freezers to hot water used throughout the store. We also use daylight harvesting in our stores that track the sun during the day to help lower the amount of artificial light used in our interiors. In 2007, we opened three high-efficiency stores, called HE.1s, that use 20 percent less energy than a typ
