Walmart Pushes Suppliers To Disclose Ingredients, Phase Out Chemicals Of Concern

Walmart’s suppliers will also be required to share product information with the retailer via a software screening tool that uses ingredient data to analyze potential impact on human health and the environment. For its own store brands, the company will participate when possible in EPA’s Design for the Environment program, which labels products as safer for human health and the environment based on green chemistry, toxicology, and modeling.

“In terms of U.S. retailers, [Walmart is] way beyond where other retailers are in engaging on the issue of chemicals in products,” says Mark Rossi, codirector of Clean Production Action, an advocate for sustainable consumer products. “That policy is setting the bar in terms of expectations on disclosure to consumers.”

Walmart developed the new policy with the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. “Some companies stop at issuing a restricted-substances list,” says Sarah Vogel, director of EDF’s environmental health program. “No other company is requiring the all-important, but often forgotten, second step to truly transformational phaseouts: putting a system in place that avoids regrettable chemical substitutions.”