Energy Efficiency, Industrial, Sourcing Renewables  -  March 27, 2019

The Wonderful Company aims for 100%

The Wonderful Company announced it will use 100% renewable electricity across all its U.S. operations by 2025 and globally by 2040.

"As a responsible steward of the environment, we've invested more than $300 million in sustainability research and innovations, clean energy and prudent use of natural resources," said Stewart Resnick, chairman and president, The Wonderful Company. "This is the natural progression of our sustainability efforts and the right thing for us to do as leaders in the agriculture industry." As part of its commitment, The Wonderful Company is joining RE100, becoming the largest agricultural company to do so.

The Wonderful Company's path to 100 percent renewable electricity began in 2007 with a ground-mounted solar installation that, at the time, was the largest privately held single-site solar plant in the U.S. The project generated nearly 15 percent of the required energy at its Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds processing facility. In 2013, the company quadrupled its investment in renewable energy, installing rooftop solar panels at its JUSTIN Wines, Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds, and Halos facilities. The Halos project became the largest privately owned single-site solar rooftop in the U.S.

In January 2019, The Wonderful Company signed its first large-scale power purchase agreement with NextEra Energy to build a 23-megawatt solar project, more than five times the size of previous installations, on 157 acres of fallow farmland at company facilities in California's Central Valley. Once completed, the project will generate enough clean electricity each year to grow nearly half of the company's pistachio, almond, and pomegranate crops and bring the company's global renewable electricity use to approximately 25 percent. Building on the success of these past renewable energy projects, The Wonderful Company will seek to source the remaining 75 percent of its electricity from renewable energy projects sited primarily on company land in the Central Valley.