Let’s keep it 100: everybody in the community is tired of paying sky-high electric bills while breathing in dirty air from old power plants. Meanwhile, these massive retail giants like Walmart, Target, and Costco are sitting on millions of square feet of empty space right on their flat roofs and parking lots. Energy experts are pointing out that these corporate properties are a goldmine for solar power. If these multi-billion-dollar companies actually stepped up and put solar panels on their roofs, they could clean up our air, save millions of dollars, and help our neighborhoods get off the fossil fuel grind.

The facts are right there in black and white. A report from Environment America and Frontier Group shows that big-box stores and shopping centers have so much roof space they could generate half of their annual electricity right from the sun. If they actually used all that empty space for solar, they would generate enough electricity to power nearly 8 million homes. That’s the same as taking 11.3 million gas-guzzling cars off the streets. It’s a no-brainer for the environment, but the big corporations are just letting all that space go to waste.

We already know this works because IKEA did it. At their Baltimore store, they put solar panels on the roof and built canopies over the parking lot. That setup cut the energy they had to buy from the grid by 84% and slashed their power costs by 57% between September and December of 2020. On top of that, the parking lot panels gave customers some much-needed shade to keep their cars cool on hot days. By February 2021, IKEA had solar arrays running at 90% of their US locations. They proved the concept works, so what’s stopping everyone else?

To put it in perspective, your average Walmart store has about 180,000 square feet of flat roof. That’s literally the size of three football fields. The report says just one of those roofs could generate enough solar energy to power 200 homes. Johanna Neumann from Environment America said it best: every single rooftop in America that isn’t producing solar is a wasted opportunity. She pointed out that now is the time to start producing local renewable energy, and there is no better place to do it than on the flat roofs of these massive superstores.

Advocates who run clean energy worker-training programs are saying this solar revolution would be a huge win for the community. It would bring real jobs and economic growth to neighborhoods that need it most, while tackling the climate crisis that always hits marginalized communities first and worst. We’re talking about putting real money back into the community while cleaning up the air we breathe.

But as of right now, only a tiny fraction of these big-box stores have actually installed rooftop solar or parking lot canopies. When asked why they aren’t making these investments, the top retail bosses—representing Walmart, Kroger, Home Depot, Costco, and Target—all came back with the same corporate excuses. They claim that complicated regulations, high labor costs, and the structural strength of their roofs are keeping them from making the move.

At the end of the day, these massive corporations make billions of dollars off our communities, but when it’s time to invest in our health and our local economy, they want to complain about the rules and the cost of labor. It’s time for these retail giants to stop making excuses, fix their roofs, and start using all that empty space to power the neighborhood.

Sources: * Environment America Research & Policy Center * Frontier Group * IKEA Group Corporate Sustainability Reports