Elizabeth Sturcken

At Walmart's Global Sustainability Milestone Meeting today, the retailer vowed to target chemical and fertilizer use in its mammoth supply chain.

In the first of an ongoing series of articles, we give voice to EDF's sustainability work with Walmart, and offer inside perspectives on what it's like to work with the world's largest retailer on its environmental impacts.

Walmart released a guidance document this week that details how it will count the emissions reductions toward the retailers goal of squeezing 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from its supply chain by 2015.

This is EDF's fifth year working with Walmart, and throughout we’ve pushed the company hard to take aggressive goals and be transparent about its results. With the company's third sustainability report, it is evident that the message is starting to sink in.

Walmart's new commitment to cut 20 million metric tons of CO2 emissions from its supply chain is big news in and of itself, but it's the way the company will leverage its suppliers to make cuts that will make the biggest impacts.