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Evaluating a company's impact (the case of Walmart)
A deep dive into Walmart's environmental and social impact

This week’s read time: 3 minutes
You are reading Green Digest Impact, a weekly newsletter that provides in-depth analyses of companies’ environmental and social impact.
OUR APPROACH
Central to our narrative is the principle of double-materiality, which recognizes that a company's impact is twofold: it affects both the environment and society at large, and in turn, these external factors influence the company's financial and operational performance.
While traditional ESG assessments focus on the latter, we aim to examine companies' direct impacts on these factors. In pursuit of this, we introduce a unique scoring system that quantifies a company's impact.
THIS WEEK’S COMPANY
Walmart

This week we dive deep into Walmart’s environmental and social impact.
Walmart is one of the world’s largest multinational retailers, offering a vast array of products, including groceries, electronics, apparel, furniture, and home goods, through its extensive network of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores.
Some interesting facts:
90% of the US population lives within a 10-mile radius of a Walmart store.
A Walmart driver travels around 100,000 miles per year, equivalent to circling the globe nearly four times.

Photo: iStock / Sundry Photography
COMPANY’S IMPACT
Walmart’s overall impact score

Walmart has a general impact score of -0.14 (on a scale from -5 to +5). Its impact is spread across 11 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 9 topics, split between positive and negative analyses.
In the socio-economic sphere,
Walmart is a global retail powerhouse, serving approximately 255 million weekly customers through its 10,500 stores and e-commerce platforms across 19 countries. The company offers over 75 million products, and in the United States alone, 140 million residents visit Walmart’s stores each week, representing roughly 42% of the US population. The company’s Everyday Low Prices (EDLP) strategy offers affordable value to customers, with a typical shopping basket costing $119, compared to an average of $167 at competitors. While this pricing model makes essential products more accessible to low-income households, it has faced criticism for its impact on local businesses and small grocers, potentially undermining local economies.
Walmart is a large global employer, with a workforce of 2.1 million people, including 1.6 million in the US alone. Its operations support over 100,000 suppliers worldwide, providing economic opportunities for countless families. However, the company faces scrutiny for alleged issues such as intense employee monitoring, unrealistic work expectations, and challenges to worker well-being. Concerns about supply chain practices, including alleged forced labor and poor working conditions, have also been raised. Employee wages also remain a contentious issue, with estimates suggesting that nearly half of Walmart’s hourly workers earn an annual wage of $29,000, which falls short of providing a decent standard of living in many regions.
Environmentally,
Walmart’s annual carbon footprint exceeds 298 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, comparable to the annual electricity usage of approximately 62.2 million homes. While the company has avoided or reduced over 750 million tonnes of CO2e since 2017, its annual emissions remain substantial. Walmart also generates significant waste, including 2.1 million tonnes of packaging waste annually, of which 1.1 million tonnes come from private-brand plastic packaging. However, the company has made progress in sustainable packaging, with 63% of its private-brand packaging now being recyclable, reusable, or industrially compostable. Despite this, 37% of its packaging remains non-recyclable. Additionally, Walmart sends 22% of its operational waste and 588,000 tonnes of food waste to landfills or incinerators each year.
ESG VS IMPACT SCORE
What is Walmart’s ESG rating?

For comparison, Walmart has a BBB rating in MSCI's ESG evaluation.
However, ESG Ratings from MSCI ESG Research are designed to measure a company’s resilience to financially material ESG risks and they provide a window into one facet of risk to financial performance. They measure how effectively companies manage ESG risks, not their impact on these factors.
SCORES BY SDG
Walmart’s impact scores by SDG

Positively (and by weight), the company scores the highest in the Zero Hunger SDG (+3.82), followed by Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (+3.66), and No Poverty (+2.91).
Negatively, the company scores the worst in the Responsible Consumption and Production SDG (-2.99), followed by Climate Action (-3.81), and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (-2.65).
*the analysis takes into account the weight of the SDGs

CONCLUSION
Materiality Map & Final Words

So, Walmart’s key social and environmental impact lies in …
its ability to provide affordability and accessibility at an unparalleled scale while driving economic opportunities for millions through its extensive network of stores, suppliers, and employees. As a global retail leader, the company excels in reaching a broad customer base and supporting low-income households with cost-effective products.
At the same time, Walmart’s pricing strategy raises concerns about its impact on local economies and small businesses. Its environmental footprint, characterized by significant carbon emissions and waste generation, highlights ongoing sustainability challenges. While progress has been made in recyclable packaging, the company continues to produce substantial plastic waste, with a considerable portion of its packaging remaining non-recyclable.
The company’s overall score of -0.14 demonstrates a mixed performance, highlighting the importance of aligning its economic success with its broader social and environmental responsibilities.
If you’d like to delve deeper into Walmart’s impact, you can explore it here.
If you'd like to learn more about the scoring methodology, you can do so here.
Do you have a specific company you'd like us to cover? Send your suggestions to [email protected]
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