Mars, Incorporated announced a long-term virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with European Energy for the planned Skuodas Wind Farm in Lithuania. The 158.4 MW project is expected to generate approximately 490 GWh of renewable electricity per year when it comes online in 2028, enough to power around 250,000 homes. The deal includes bundled guarantees of origin and will support Mars' pet food manufacturing facility in Lithuania as well as its broader European value chain electricity needs.
The announcement is straightforward as corporate clean energy commitments go. What makes it worth paying attention to is the specific structure: Mars is contracting the output of a project that has not yet been built. The long-term financial commitment from a corporate buyer is what makes the project financially viable enough to proceed. That is additionality in its most direct form.
Why Additionality Is the Right Lens for Evaluating Corporate Renewable Energy PPAs
The additionality question in corporate renewable energy procurement is simple to state and genuinely difficult to answer in practice. A company that buys renewable energy certificates from a wind farm that has been operating for a decade is not adding new clean energy to the grid. It's claiming credit for generation that would have happened regardless. A company that signs a long-term contract enabling a project that would not otherwise have been built is doing something meaningfully different. Its commitment is what brings the megawatts into existence.
The Skuodas deal sits clearly in the second category. European Energy's Deputy CEO Jens-Peter Zink put it plainly:
"Through this collaboration, we are bringing the Skuodas wind farm forward and adding substantial new, domestically produced capacity to Lithuania's energy mix."
The project goes online because the PPA exists. That's a credible additionality claim in a way that purchasing existing-project RECs is not.
This distinction is becoming more important as sustainability reporting frameworks tighten. The GHG Protocol's Land Sector and Removals Standard and broader corporate disclosure requirements are placing increased scrutiny on whether renewable energy claims reflect actual emissions impact or accounting-level attribution. Procurement teams structuring new clean energy agreements in 2026 are working in an environment where "we bought RECs" is increasingly an insufficient answer to auditors and investors asking about the real-world effect of the company's energy procurement choices.
What the Mars Renewables Acceleration Program Approach Means for Scope 3 Procurement Strategy
Mars is not just using this contract to cover its own operational electricity. The stated goal is to extend renewable electricity coverage across its full value chain, which includes Scope 3 supplier electricity. That is harder to execute credibly than covering owned operations, and most companies haven't attempted it at scale. Mars expects its Renewables Acceleration Program overall to contribute approximately a 10% reduction in its total carbon footprint by 2030 against a 2015 baseline.
The program has moved in sequence: a 2025 agreement covering more than 100 solar projects in Poland and three U.S. projects with Enel, followed by a deal for 70% of the output from the Kölvallen Wind Farm in Sweden, and now the Skuodas commitment in Lithuania. Each is a new-build contract. The pattern reflects a deliberate choice to use long-term financial commitments to enable capacity that otherwise would not exist rather than to purchase credit from existing generation.
For sustainability and procurement teams benchmarking their own renewable energy strategies, the Mars approach offers a useful reference point. New-build contracts carry more construction and timeline risk than purchasing from existing projects. But they also carry more credibility when the question is whether the company's renewable energy program is actually changing anything about how much clean electricity exists in the markets where it operates.
