Walmart becomes first retailer to evaluate its chemical footprint

Today the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) released its second annual report, revealing that Walmart has become the first retailer to evaluate its chemical footprint and has also become a CFP signatory.

Screenshot/Bloomberg

The CFP is an emerging tool that retailers can use to understand how they and their suppliers manage toxic chemicals in their supply chains and identify opportunities for improvement.

Walmart is just one of the major companies that participated in this year’s Chemical Footprint Project survey. A diverse range of companies across sectors, sizes, and the globe participated–demonstrating CFP’s relevance and application to a broad array of companies that sell and/or manufacture apparel and footwear, building products and furnishings, packaging, medical devices, household and personal care products, toys, and electronics. Participating companies had annual revenues totaling over $670 billion.

Over the past two years, participating companies that quantified their footprint reduced their use of chemicals of high concern in products by a whopping 416 million pounds–enough to fill over 3,600 swimming pools! You can read all about it in the report and supporting materials here.

Last November, CVS Health became the first major retailer to become a Signatory to the CFP, and Walmart has now become the first retailer to take the next step by participating in the survey and measuring its chemical footprint. Participation in the Chemical Footprint Project is one of the 13 categories in which we evaluated companies on in our 2016 “Who’s Minding the Store?” retailer report card, which we plan to update in November.

We applaud Walmart for taking this important step and for the company’s continued leadership in addressing chemicals of concern in its supply chain. “CFP is making data available for benchmarking and gap analysis, which are critical for us to understand where our company and our suppliers are on the journey to more sustainable chemicals,” explained Zach Freeze, Senior Director for Sustainability for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

We hope other retailers will follow suit and embrace this best-in-class safer chemicals management tool. It is a valuable tool that can help retailers “mind the store.”