CVS photo

CVS Health announced Thursday a green energy investment that will source and offset the equivalent annual electricity use of nearly 1,000 stores in California, Washington D.C., Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey.

The national health solutions company has executed a pair of long-term agreements with Rhode Island-based Constellation, a carbon-free energy producer, to purchase energy and renewable energy certificates. The deals are made possible by Constellation’s own agreements with green energy producers Terra-gen and Next Era Energy Resources.

The CVS agreements’ service area includes about 500 CVS Health locations in California and about 40 in Fresno, Kings, Madera, Tulare and Kern counties, said Sheryl Burke, CVS Health chief sustainability officer.

The agreement totals 264,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy, with an expected carbon footprint reduction of nearly 114,000 metric tons of emissions annually.

The average household consumes about 14 megawatt hours a year.

“Building a world of health around every person we serve means securing a healthy and resilient planet for generations to come,” said Burke. “These investments we’re making right now to positively impact the communities we serve – like here in the Greater Fresno community – are so important as our world continues to evolve.”

Rather than installing solar panels to these storefronts, CVS is purchasing actual energy as well as renewable energy certificates representing the proprietary rights to green energy produced by enterprise solar projects in California and Maryland.

CVS will receive the certificates in January 2026, when the solar projects are expected to be completed, Burke said.

CVS has now made five renewable energy investments since 2022.

The two new investments with Constellation, the company’s two agreements announced in 2023 and the first investment made in 2022 represent more than 500,000 megawatt hours of clean renewable energy.

CVS aims to continue to work toward a goal sourcing 50% renewable energy by 2040.