Client Success Story: Wal-Mart
RMI shows clients how to use energy and resource efficiency as a competitive advantage.
For example, Wal-Mart boasts one of the largest private heavy-duty truck fleets in the country — about 6,800 trucks. After consulting with RMI, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced plans to double the fleet’s fuel efficiency by 2015.
To help reach this goal, the company has outfitted its trucks with auxiliary power units so that driver doesn’t have to keep the engine idling just to run the air conditioner. This and other profitable design innovations are good not only for the environment, but also save Wal-Mart money on transportation. How much?
Wal-Mart expects they will produce net savings of at least $494 million a year by 2020, and more in later years.
“[W]e believe that these investments and innovations will spark industry wide changes in vehicle platform, engine, and transportation efficiencies, create jobs, reduce foreign oil dependency, and increase the quality of life for our stakeholders,” states Wal-Mart’s web site (
www.walmartstores.com
).
So Wal-Mart is not only reducing its carbon footprint, but also honing its competitive edge.
For more
Breakthrough Design Team client success stories, see
Representative Projects.
For more informations, see: RMI publication
#T07-11, Trucking Efficiency Opportunities Presentation
This presentation outlines practical ways that Class-8 truck fleets can realize significant fuel savings and increased profits through fuel efficiency. Focusing on components that save fuel and giving examples of fleets such as Wal-Mart and Contract Freighters Inc who have capitalized on these opportunities, RMI's researchers demonstrate how a 25% fuel economy improvement is possible today, using existing technologies that can be retrofitted onto almost any highway truck.
