We have all seen the corporate press releases where retail giants lecture everyday citizens about their carbon footprints and environmental responsibilities. Yet, if you look at the actual physical reality of these massive superstores, they are sitting on millions of square feet of completely empty, wasted rooftop space. Energy experts are pointing out the obvious: the flat roofs and giant asphalt parking lots of Walmart, Target, and Costco are prime real estate for localized solar power. But instead of actually building, these companies are dragging their feet and pointing fingers at bureaucracy.

The numbers behind this untapped potential are wild. A report from the non-profit Environment America and Frontier Group states that big-box stores and shopping malls have enough flat roof space to generate a whopping 50% of their annual electricity needs right on-site. If these corporate giants actually utilized their full rooftop potential, they would generate enough power to run nearly 8 million average American homes. That would cut emissions by the same amount as taking 11.3 million gas cars off the road. It turns out the easiest way to reduce foreign energy dependence is literally sitting on top of the local retail strip.

If you want a real-world example, look at IKEA. At their Baltimore location, they put solar panels on the roof and built solar canopies over the parking lot. The result? They cut the electricity they had to buy from the grid by 84%, saving them a massive 57% on their power bills from September to December of 2020. Plus, the parking lot panels actually shaded the cars, keeping them cool on hot days. As of February 2021, IKEA had these solar arrays running at 90% of their US locations. It is clearly doable if a company actually wants to do it.

Instead, we have places like Walmart, where the average store has a rooftop of 180,000 square feet. That is literally the size of three football fields. According to the Environment America report, just one of these roofs has enough space to support solar power for 200 homes. Yet, these massive structures remain empty. Johanna Neumann, senior director for Environment America’s campaign for 100% Renewable, called this out directly, stating that every rooftop in America that is not producing solar energy is a rooftop wasted while we try to break our dependence on foreign energy and the geopolitical conflicts that come with it.

Clean energy training advocates are also pointing out that a commercial solar boom would be a major windfall for local workers, bringing jobs and economic growth directly to the communities. They also note that this would help alleviate the environmental burden on marginalized communities, who always end up living next to the old, polluting fossil-fuel power plants that these big-box stores rely on.