Creating Shared Value

Shared value—addressing societal issues in ways that create long-term business value—underpins Walmart’s enterprise strategy and ESG approach.

We believe that serving our stakeholders maximizes long-term value for shareholders: delivering value to our customers, creating economic opportunity for associates and suppliers, strengthening local communities, and enhancing the sustainability of our business and supply chains. Focusing on these areas helps us build customer and associate trust, create new business opportunities, manage cost and risk, and strengthen the systems we rely on. 

We prioritize issues based on:

• Relevance to our business
• Importance to building and maintaining stakeholder trust
• Walmart’s ability to effect a positive outcome

For example, we have prioritized providing positive experiences and paths of opportunity for our associates, improving the sustainability of retail and supply chains, boosting community resilience, and upholding high ethical standards.

Read more: Our ESG priorities

We analyze key business value drivers and relevant societal systems to determine outcomes aligned with shared value. We identify key performance indicators and metrics that indicate whether we are making progress. 

For example, we aspire to source responsibly and act as a catalyst of positive transformation for people working in consumer product supply chains, as we believe that will strengthen our supply chain directly and the capacity of product supply chains as a whole. We measure progress by looking at outcomes from Responsible Sourcing audits, positive impacts in deeper in higher-risk supply chains, and the depth of supplier engagement on topics like responsible recruitment. 

We develop policies, practices, and tactics to advance our value-creation aspirations, guided by the same three factors outlined above. 

For example, when determining which practices will help us best achieve an outcome of belonging in our business, we consider: 

• Relevance to our business: Whether the activity will improve service to customers and members; improve our ability to attract, engage, develop, and retain associates, and deliver returns that justify the investment. 
• Importance to building and maintaining stakeholder trust: Whether the activities are compliant, and whether they bring people together without divisiveness.
• Walmart’s ability to effect a positive outcome: Whether we’re clear on the outcome we’re seeking and whether we can measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the activity in driving towards that outcome. 

Finally, transparency cultivates trust, and we regularly publish information on our priorities, aspirations, strategies, practices, and outcomes. This information can be found, among other places, in our ESG reporting, Annual Report on Form 10-K, and Proxy Statement.