ATLANTA, Feb. 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Depot^® has been highlighted as a global leader on corporate climate action and continues to pursue its sustainability goals with new renewable energy initiatives in 2019.

CDP, an environmental impact non-profit, has named The Home Depot to its Climate Change "A" List for its actions to cut carbon emissions and mitigate climate risks.

Every year, thousands of companies disclose data about their environmental impacts to CDP for independent assessment and receive scores of A to D- for how effectively they are tackling climate change.

New to The Home Depot's CDP report this year is its commitment to a Science Based Target for scope 1 and 2 emissions with reduction goals. The company is aiming for a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and a 50% reduction by 2035.

"Managing carbon emissions has been a focus for Home Depot for more than 10 years," says Ron Jarvis, vice president of environmental innovation. "Our dual strategy to reduce our total energy use and create a cleaner energy portfolio has helped us to reduce our absolute carbon emissions by over 3 million metric tons since 2009."

As a part of its overall renewable energy strategy, The Home Depot is working to procure 135 megawatts of energy from various alternative sources by the end of 2020. To make additional progress toward its goal, The Home Depot is announcing major investments in wind and solar for 2019.

Wind Power Expansion
The Home Depot is expanding its wind-powered renewable energy program by adding a third offsite wind project. The company will purchase enough wind energy from the Pretty Prairie Wind Project in Kansas to power about 40 stores for a year. The home improvement retailer currently partners with two operating wind farms in Texas and Mexico.

The Pretty Prairie Wind Project, owned and operated by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, is located in Reno County, Kansas. The larger wind farm is expected to create hundreds of construction jobs, up to 20 full-time operational jobs, and provide an estimated $77 million in local community benefits.

Through a 15-year power purchase agreement, The Home Depot will purchase 15 megawatts (MW) of the wind farm's 220 MW capacity once it is operational in late 2019. The farm will feature 83 wind turbines that can produce enough power to provide more than 50,000 average U.S. homes with clean electricity each year.

Solar Power Expansion
In addition to the Kansas, Texas and Mexico wind farms, the company also procures energy from solar farms in Delaware, Massachusetts and Minnesota with a combined annual output of 25.0 million kilowatt hours (kWh). Forty-five U.S. Home Depot stores now have operational rooftop solar systems, and the company plans to expand its residential rooftop solar offerings.

To learn more about how The Home Depot is reducing its environmental impact visit https://corporate.homedepot.com/responsibility.

About The Home Depot
The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,286 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. In fiscal 2017, The Home Depot had sales of $100.9 billion and earnings of $8.6 billion. The Company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.

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SOURCE The Home Depot

ATLANTA, Oct. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Depot^® is increasing its protection of High Conservation Value Forests and tropical Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs) by not accepting any wood products from The Amazon (South America) and Congo (Africa) Basins, unless Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

Although less than one percent of the company's existing wood products come from the Amazon and Congo Basins, The Home Depot announced today that it will require that any wood products coming from these areas be FSC certified.  The company has given preference to FSC certified wood products since 1999.

The company announced the updated policy in its 2017 Responsibility Report. The full report is located online at: https://corporate.homedepot.com/newsroom/infographic-2017-responsibility-report.

The report also unveils newly strengthened chemical oversight practices in five product categories, including paint, carpet, vinyl and laminate flooring, and insulation.

The chemical strategy includes commitments to increase the assortment of products that have transparency of product ingredients and third party certification of chemical ingredients. Additionally, the company is committed to working with suppliers to improve chemicals in categories with the greatest potential impact to indoor air quality, and will conduct annual reviews of product categories to track progress and drive innovation.  

The company partners with the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council, Healthy Building Network and Cradle to Cradle for guidance on priority chemicals and innovations.

"We recognize the role we play in the value chain for home improvement products, especially lumber and manufactured goods," said Ron Jarvis, vice president of environmental innovation. "We believe that better transparency is the key to retailers and consumers making better purchasing decisions that will improve our industry's long-term environmental impact."

The Home Depot is also expanding its Eco Options program that identifies products that have less of an impact on the environment than standard products, established in 2007, to include the third party certification programs Cradle to Cradle Certified™ and GREENGUARD^® Gold.

Additional highlights from 2016 include:

• The company estimates its customers saved more than 76 billion gallons of water in fiscal 2016 from the sales of WaterSense^® certified products
• The company estimates its customers saved more than $903 million in utility costs from sales of Energy Star^® certified products, reducing consumers greenhouse gas emissions by 4.9 million metric tons in fiscal 2016
• The Home Depot Foundation has impacted  more than 34,500 veterans' homes and facilities since 2011, with a financial commitment to veterans related causes of a quarter of a billion dollars by 2020

The Home Depot applies Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Guidelines, which are included in the 2017 Responsibility Report, as a cross-reference tool for its sustainability reporting to make meaningful data available to stakeholders.

About The Home Depot
The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,283 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. In fiscal 2016, The Home Depot had sales of $94.6 billion and earnings of $8.0 billion. The Company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.

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ATLANTA, Aug. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Not all Home Depot stores are exactly alike, but they each have one thing in common: they're big. The average Home Depot is around 104,000 square feet in size – meaning there's 104,000 square feet of empty space sitting on top of each one.

Today, the company announced a new use for 50 of its store rooftops: mini solar farms.

Click here to read full story.

Related stories:
Home Depot taps Wind Farm in Texas
Bloom Fuel Cells at 170 Home Depot stores and distribution centers

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SOURCE The Home Depot

ATLANTA, Aug. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Depot® today announced the addition of solar installations at 50 stores as it continues to expand its alternative energy portfolio, essentially creating mini solar farms out of unused rooftops.

The project will reduce electricity grid demand by an estimated 30 to 35 percent annually at each Home Depot store; the equivalent of powering 2,300 average U.S. homes for a year. The average store roof, at approximately 104,000 square feet, will accommodate 1,000 panels.

The Home Depot is working with Current, powered by GE, on 20 solar installations at stores in New Jersey, as well as eight stores in Connecticut, Maryland and Washington, DC. An additional 22 stores in California and New York will receive solar, of which six will utilize Tesla Powerpacks to store energy and dispatch additional power as needed.

"Our alternative energy projects are important elements of our sustainability and operations efforts as they reduce carbon emissions while also lowering our energy costs," said David Hawkins, vice president of labor and operations for The Home Depot.

The company's current alternative and renewable portfolio includes:

• Solar Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) in Delaware and Massachusetts
• Fuel cells at more than 170 stores and distribution centers
• The Los Mirasoles Wind Farm northeast of McAllen, Texas, announced this January
• The Zopiloapan Wind Farm located in central Mexico, added this June

The solar addition will bring the company's alternative energy footprint to more than 130 megawatts (MW) as it pursues the goal of utilizing 135 MW of alternative and renewable energy by 2020.

Construction on the selected stores will continue throughout 2017. For more on The Home Depot's rooftop solar program, visit: https://corporate.homedepot.com/newsroom/rooftop-solar-farms.

The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,282 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. In fiscal 2016, The Home Depot had sales of $94.6 billion and earnings of $8.0 billion. The Company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.

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ATLANTA, Jan. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Depot^® today announced its first major investment in a wind-powered renewable energy project.

The energy purchased from the wind farm is enough to power 100 Home Depot stores for a year while also providing $150,000 in local community benefits.

The Los Mirasoles Wind Farm, owned and operated by EDP Renewables North America, is located in Hidalgo and Starr Counties, northeast of McAllen, Texas. Through a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA), The Home Depot's annual purchase of 50 megawatts (MW) is a fifth of the wind farm's 250 MW capacity. The farm utilizes Vestas V110 2.0 MW wind turbines and produces enough power to provide more than 70,000 average U.S. homes with clean electricity each year.

The Home Depot partnered with EDP Renewables for the Texas development in 2016. EDP Renewables operates globally with 41 wind farms across North America.  

As a part of its renewable energy initiative, The Home Depot's goal is to procure 135 megawatts of various renewable energy sources, including solar and wind, by the end of 2020.

In addition to the wind farm, the company also procures energy from solar farms in Delaware and Massachusetts with a combined annual output of 14.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh). More than 150 stores and distribution centers utilize on-site fuel cells that produce roughly 85 percent of the electricity each store needs to operate.

For more on The Home Depot's wind energy project, visit: https://corporate.homedepot.com/newsroom/texas-wind-farm-renewable-energy

The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,278 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. In fiscal 2015, The Home Depot had sales of $88.5 billion and earnings of $7.0 billion. The Company employs more than 385,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.

SOURCE The Home Depot