The Wonderful Company recently announced plans to power its entire U.S. operation using only renewable energy by 2025. The Los Angeles-based agricultural company is joining a larger group of other businesses that are shifting their operations away from petroleum-generated electricity. Wonderful will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on power-purchase agreements over the next two decades as it moves towards its goal.
“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,” Wonderful Chairman and President Stewart Resnick said in a news release. “This is the natural progression of our sustainability efforts and the right thing for us to do as leaders in the agriculture industry.”
The Wonderful Company originally began investing in renewable energy back in 2007 when the company developed a ground-mounted solar installation which was the largest single-site solar plant in the country at the time. That project alone generated nearly 15 percent of the energy needed for the company’s pistachios and almonds processing facility. The company also installed rooftop solar panels at several other facilities a few years later. Earlier in 2019 Wonderful signed an agreement with NextEra Energy for the construction of a 23-megawatt solar installation on 157 acres of fallow farmland in the Central Valley, which is projected to power a quarter of the company’s operations.
As part of the changeover, Wonderful will be joining companies such as eBay, Bank of American and Ikea in becoming members of RE100. The collaborative, global initiative is led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, is designed to help encourage and assist companies transition to renewable sources of energy. The company plans to source its renewable energy from other projects primarily in the Central Valley. By 2040, the Wonderful Company plans to reach 100 percent renewable electricity on a global scale.
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