Wind-powered Slurpees come to Texas

The company recently announced an agreement with TXU Energy to power all of its Texas stores with wind.

“This agreement is beneficial for 7-Eleven on several fronts,” said Ben Tison, 7-Eleven’s senior vice president of development. “Wind energy is a renewable, more cost-effective resource that will lower the carbon footprint of these stores, as well as operating costs.”

7-Eleven’s news comes on the heels of last week’s announcement by Anheuser-Busch InBev, one of the world’s largest beer makers and distributors. The company pledged to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. Worldwide, it boasts over 200,000 employees across 50 countries and 264 breweries, so the move to renewables will have substantial impacts.

Besides practicing good stewardship, economics played a major role in Anheuser-Busch Inbev’s decision.

“Our approach takes different business, social and environmental benefits into account,” Anheuser-Busch InBev said. “We do not expect our cost base to increase. Renewable electricity is competitive with or cheaper than traditional forms of electricity in many markets.”

7-Eleven and Anheuser-Busch InBev aren’t alone in these moves. The Home Depot recently purchased enough wind to power 100 stores, GM is transitioning an Arlington, Texas SUV factory to 100 percent wind energy, and Procter & Gamble makes all of its homecare goods like Tide and Dawn with wind. Google expects to run 100 percent of its worldwide operations using renewable energy this year, with wind supplying 95 percent of that.

Because wind’s costs have fallen by two-thirds over the last seven years, it’s the cheapest source of new electric generating capacity in the U.S., and cost-competitive in many more. That’s one of the reasons so many companies are choosing to power their operations using wind energy—not only is it clean, it’s good for their bottom lines.