Options include using low-emission or electric vehicles and installing charging stations on-site, or placing air filters in local buildings. Point targets are based on each facility’s size, number of truck trips and other factors.

Big-box retailers maintain that they can manage their facilities’ environmental impacts without government intervention or structural change. For example, Target touts investments to make its facilities more energy efficient and place solar panels on its stores and distribution centers. Yet, Target’s indirect emissions dwarf these gains.

For example, in 2022 the company generated nearly 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions in transporting goods from its distribution centers to consumers. Including emissions generated when suppliers shipped these goods to Target’s distribution network more than doubled this figure.

In comparison, the company estimated that the electricity it purchased to power its facilities in 2022 generated just over 1.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions. Using this number as a base, I estimate that Target’s claim the same year of using 60% of electricity from renewable resources offset emissions by some 2.25 million metric tons.

And Target is only one of numerous retailers. According to a 2022 report by the World Retail Congress and Boston Consulting Group, this sector as a whole “has some way to go before it can claim truly green credentials. … Most [large retailers] have yet to put in place comprehensive sustainability agendas.”

The goods that consumers buy, and the ways in which they buy them, drastically affect the environment. In my view, the retail sector’s impacts on air, water, waste generation and Earth’s climate call for national-level responses. Big-box stores may not look like smoke-belching factories, but their companies’ operations affect the environment in ways that have become too big to ignore.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Johnathan Williams, University of Northern Iowa

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Johnathan Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.