At Best Buy, we’re committed to reducing our impact on the planet. And we want to help our customers to do the same.
We know many people care about sustainability and want to use less energy at home. So, we’re helping them reduce their carbon footprints and save money in the process.
In fact, we’ve set a goal to help our customers reduce their own carbon emissions 20% by 2030 through the use of ENERGY STAR certified products. That would also help them save more than $5 billion on their energy bills.
Nearly half of our customers end up selecting an ENERGY STAR certified product when available, and more than 56 million ENERGY STAR certified products have been purchased at Best Buy since 2017. As a result, our customers have collectively reduced their carbon emissions by the equivalent of removing 3 million cars off the roads for an entire year, and they’ll save more than $2.5B in energy costs over the lifetime of their products.
That means we’re now over halfway to our goal of helping our customers save $5 billion on their energy bills. This progress is driven partly by our growing appliance market share. But while that has put us ahead of pace on our goal for customer savings, it has also impacted the total carbon emissions from the products we have sold. Our product emissions have not materially changed from 2017 to 2020, and we recognize we have work ahead to achieve our 2030 carbon goal.
“It has never been more important for us to focus our attention on finding ways to reduce total product emissions so we can achieve our customer impact goals,” said Hugh Cherne, associate director of environmental sustainability at Best Buy. “We are eager and committed to addressing this challenge,”
Here are some of the key strategies we’re using to help our customers live more sustainably.
Offering and promoting ENERGY STAR certified products
To accelerate our progress, our merchants work with our manufacturers to offer a variety of energy-efficient products while also promoting these products through our external channels.
When it comes to tech and appliances, ENERGY STAR is the best mark to identify products that use less energy and less water. For example, ENERGY STAR certified washing machines use about 25% less energy and 33% less water than regular washers. Over the lifetime of the product, an ENERGY STAR washer can save $370 in energy costs.
Sustainable products resources
Whether it’s online or in stores, we want to make it easy for our customers to find energy-efficient products. In our stores, the ENERGY STAR logo is featured on the tag that sits next to the device for certified products.
On BestBuy.com, where a growing number of our customers are shopping, it’s easy to find ENERGY STAR certified products by using our filtering tool. Additionally, we have a page on BestBuy.com that’s all about ENERGY STAR, where customers can learn about best practices for reducing their energy usage at home.
In addition to providing a variety of ENERGY STAR certified products, we also now offer products online that are designed for sustainable living. This includes renewable energy solutions such as solar panels, green transportation, gardening, water saving devices and more.
Reducing our own carbon footprint
Meanwhile, we continue to work toward reducing carbon emissions in our own operations. In 2019, we set an ambitious, science-based goal to reduce carbon emissions within our operations 75% by 2030.
Last year, we joined The Climate Pledge, committing to being carbon neutral by 2040, a full decade faster than our previous goal of 2050. And CDP recently named Best Buy to its prestigious Climate A List for the fourth consecutive year.
Our carbon goals are certified by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a collaboration between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Click here for Best Buy’s Fiscal 2020 environmental, social and governance report, “Doing a World of Good.”