A Message from Our Chief Sustainability Officer
Walmart has grown from humble roots with the enduring purpose of helping people save money and live better.
As a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer, we want to help people live better not only through our customer proposition but in the way we deliver it, by:
- Creating opportunity: Being an employer of choice, where all associates feel they belong, can gain skills, and can advance through career paths ranging from retail management to health care to tech.
- Enhancing sustainability: Operating efficiently, effectively, and sustainably in service of the customer and communities; building a resilient product supply chain that helps create prosperity for people while sustaining and restoring our planet.
- Strengthening community: Providing access to everyday goods and services as well as good jobs, tax revenue, and philanthropic support for community needs.
- Upholding the highest standards of ethics and integrity: Being the most trusted retailer so our stakeholders choose us every time.
Our environmental, social and governance efforts center on the themes of opportunity, sustainability, community, and ethics and integrity. Our efforts create shareholder value by creating value for our stakeholders – our customers, associates, suppliers, business partners, community partners, and even the planet (because as a retailer, our commodity sourcing, facilities, and customer communities depend on healthy ecosystems and climate). We believe that when Walmart creates value for stakeholders, we strengthen our business and deliver value to our shareholders, which allows us to invest in the capabilities to serve our stakeholders even better…propelling a virtuous cycle of shared value. We aim to become a regenerative company – one that not only sustains but strengthens the people and the world around us.
Recent examples illustrate our approach:
Investing in our associates: We have raised minimum starting wages over 90% and average hourly wages 54% since 2015 through improvements in jobs and career paths including changes based on direct engagement, dialogue, and feedback from associates. Walmart associates have also helped shape and introduce additional benefits, such as extended parental leave, adoption benefits, and expanded vision care benefits. Our on-the-job training and programs such as Walmart Academy provide opportunities for associates to grow their skills and careers; approximately 88% of Walmart U.S. store roles above entry level were filled internally in FY2023. Such investments help us to attract, develop, and retain the top talent needed to continue bringing our purpose to life.
Rewiring our business for a low-carbon future: We are committed to achieving our science-based targets; last year we achieved a cumulative 23% reduction in GHG emissions from our own operations relative to our 2015 baseline year and have progressed toward our goal of being powered by 100% renewable energy. We continue to take meaningful action to decarbonize product value chains; through Project Gigaton, Walmart suppliers report having reduced or avoided over 750 million metric tons of emissions since 2017. As electric vehicle (EV) ownership grows, we are building our own EV fast-charging network at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations coast to coast to create a convenient, reliable, and affordable charging option for customers. We believe our leadership on energy and emissions in the coming decade can create value for our business and stakeholders.
We invite you to read these ESG Highlights and the accompanying ESG Issue Briefs to learn more about how we continue to strengthen our business by creating value for our stakeholders.
Kathleen McLaughlin
EVP and Chief Sustainability Officer
Walmart Inc.
