Updated: Sept. 20, 2020
Our customers count on Walmart to deliver affordable products in a way that is sustainable for people and for the planet, through actions that build transparency and trust. We work with others, including suppliers, NGOs, and governments, all along the supply chain to help improve the sustainability of products we sell. We do this while aiming to offer quality products at affordable prices with a time-saving shopping experience.
Walmart recognizes the important role of healthy forests for society, as well as for our business. Forests provide numerous benefits to people and the planet: a home for people that live in forests, habitat for a vast number of species, carbon storage, and water flow regulation and purification. Forests are directly responsible for 1 in 4 people’s livelihoods, they are important sources for products like paper and furniture, and they provide fundamental environmental services that people and agriculture depend upon.1 As the global population increases, Walmart believes that changes to sourcing and production of products are necessary in order to continue to meet the expectations of our customers and to help preserve forests as a resource.
Walmart also acknowledges the importance of indigenous peoples and local communities in preserving and protecting forests.
Walmart understands that our aspiration to deliver more sustainable products means leveraging our position as a trusted retailer and brand to secure important habitats and biodiversity, while working to reduce our carbon footprint. We believe we can deliver the greatest impact by creating a higher demand for products produced with no deforestation, supporting and enabling transparency, and investing in sustainable sourcing regions.
As a member of the Consumer Goods Forum, we supported the resolution to achieve zero net deforestation in our supply chain by 2020. In furtherance our goals, Walmart is focused on key commodities that, according to the World Economic Forum, are responsible for global deforestation in tropical forests: palm oil, pulp and paper, timber, beef, and soy.2 For example, beef and soy production is driving more than two-thirds of the recorded habitat loss in Brazil’s Amazon and Cerrado regions, and Argentina and Paraguay’s Gran Chaco.3 Although we are focused on these commodities, we recognize that additional production types also contribute to deforestation such as cocoa, coffee, rubber, and forest-based fabrics. We encourage our suppliers of these types of products to work to source products that do not contribute to deforestation and conversion. We ask suppliers to avoid deforestation and conversion of natural habitats, to encourage conservation solutions, and to increase the use of recycled content. We also recognize the importance of embedding the following principles in sourcing policies, procedures, and practices across their supply chains:
There are two common ways to measure deforestation: measuring change in tree cover or change in the use of land. For purposes of this policy, Walmart looks to the definition of deforestation used in the country of origin. Walmart will continue to work with multi-stakeholder initiatives to address deforestation and conversion in high risk origins.
Walmart recognizes that no company can solve deforestation on its own and that we must leverage our ability to promote sustainable agricultural and forestry production and sourcing beyond our private brands. We have made progress against our original 2020 goals, but we know that more work is needed in the short and long term to stop the continued loss of critical landscapes across the globe. We recognize the importance of collaboration with our suppliers, our peers, governments and NGOs to address deforestation and promote sustainable production at an industry level. This will require new approaches and solutions at the jurisdictional, landscape, and producer level that drive results on the ground by engaging governments, non-profits, producers, and other companies to improve policy and promote clear demand signals for more sustainable products.
We will publicly share our progress annually and will continue to engage in the development and use of public disclosure tools and reports.
Palm oil is an ingredient in a variety of food and consumer products and is also widely used as cooking oil in many parts of the world. According to the World Wildlife Fund, high demand for palm oil has contributed to deforestation, which in turn increases the amount of greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere through burning of forested lands and elimination of carbon sinks. This also leads to the destruction of habitat for endangered species and conflict over land and natural resources.4
By 2025, Walmart’s aim is that private brand products containing any form of palm oil (crude, refined, palm kernel oil, fractions, expellers, and derivatives) will be sourced with no deforestation or conversion in accordance with the principles and criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) segregated supply chain systems, or equivalent standards.
For all Walmart private brand products, we ask our global suppliers to:
We ask that all national brand suppliers to Walmart using palm oil use only palm sourced in accordance with the principles and criteria of the RSPO (mass balance and segregated supply chain systems), or equivalent standards, by the end of 2025 and report progress annually.
Sustainable sourcing of pulp, paper, paperboard, and timber is an important means to foster forest health. Sustainable sourcing of these products is important to foster forest health and to secure availability of forest resources into the future. Sustainable forest management protects biodiversity, High Conservation Value (HV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) areas, enhances ecosystem functions and water quality and quantity, helps prevent conversion of natural forests to plantations or other land uses, helps promote indigenous peoples’ and worker rights, and mitigates greenhouse gas emissions.
By 2025, Walmart’s goal is that private brand products made of pulp, paper, and timber will be sourced deforestation and conversion-free. Walmart aims to implement sustainable pulp, paper, and timber procurement practices that promote sustainable management, conservation, protection and restoration of the world’s forests.
For all Walmart private brand products, we ask our global suppliers to:
Beef production is the leading driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest and the Cerrado, a wooded savannah south and east of the Amazon.6 Growing demand for beef, leather, and other products is expected to continue to exert significant pressure on other ecologically important regions such as Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia.7 These are some of the most bio-diverse areas in the world and play critical roles in the global climate.8
By the end of 2022, Walmart aims to only source fresh beef from the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, and the Gran Chaco in Argentina and Paraguay that has been produced with no deforestation or conversion. Walmart also aims to increase transparency and monitoring in the beef industry while helping to promote productivity increases on existing cattle lands that meet sustainable grassland management, conservation, protection, and restoration expectations. Walmart will continue to advocate, alongside multi-stakeholder initiatives, NGOs, suppliers and others, to make deforestation and conversion-free production the norm in the industry.
We ask all Walmart fresh beef suppliers sourcing from Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay to:
Soy is a crop that has been associated with the conversion of some of the most species-rich lands in the world, leading to increased deforestation.9 Soy is prevalent in food products, used for protein, to make vegetable oils, and as a key ingredient in many processed foods.10 Between 70% and 75% of all soy becomes livestock feed—for chickens, pigs, and farmed fish, as well as for cows.11 Soy production is one of the commodities driving more than two-thirds of the recorded habitat loss in Brazil’s Amazon and Cerrado regions and Argentina and Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region.12
By 2023, Walmart aims to only source soy that has been produced with no deforestation or conversion. In addition, Walmart supports the indefinite extension of the Soy Moratorium in Brazil’s Amazon region and encourages suppliers to publicly endorse the agreement. Walmart also actively supports regional agreements regarding deforestation and conversion-free production in additional high-risk biomes. This includes multi-stakeholder and government engagement in critical higher-risk regions, such as the Amazon and the Cerrado to achieve deforestation and conversion-free production at the regional level with geospatial monitoring.
We ask all Walmart private brand suppliers selling products containing soy (both as an ingredient and in feed for animal products) from Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay to:
OR
We encourage our national brand suppliers to set similar goals and communicate annually on their progress.
Walmart recognizes the value of restoring the world’s most critical forests. Forest restoration can have many benefits, including increased resilience to climate change in global communities, improved carbon capture and storage in critical landscapes, and enhanced biodiversity, ecosystem, and societal benefits.13
Walmart encourages all suppliers to support restoration and reforestation initiatives. We ask our suppliers to join Project Gigaton, set goals to restore forests in their supply chains, and report progress annually. More information on these type of efforts can be found on Walmart’s Sustainability Hub.
In addition to the supply chain actions listed above, Walmart encourages suppliers to engage in place-based approaches (both at the jurisdictional and landscape-level) to leverage positive change beyond individual supply chains and to help accelerate deforestation-free commodity production systems at scale.
These actions will vary by jurisdiction and region, but could include:
For more information, please visit the Walmart Sustainability Hub.
1 https://www.conservation.org/what/Pages/forests.aspx
2 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/deforestation-voluntary-action-regulation/
3 https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/what-are-the-biggest-drivers-of-tropical-deforestation
4 https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/palm-oil
5 Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Central, African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), and Zambia (Source: CDP High-Deforestation Risk Jurisdictions List, GCP, 2016)
6 https://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/environmental-sustainability/forest-positive-deforestation/beef/
7 https://international.nwf.org/deforestation/cattle/
8 https://www.conservation.org/priorities/biodiversity-hotspots
9 https://www.theconsumergoodsforum.com/environmental-sustainability/forest-positive-deforestation/soy/
10 https://ncsoy.org/media-resources/uses-of-soybeans/
11 https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/what-are-the-biggest-drivers-of-tropical-deforestation
12 https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2018/articles/what-are-the-biggest-drivers-of-tropical-deforestation
13 https://www.conservation.org/priorities/restoration
It was a good ride while it lasted! Walmart may not have digital coupons, or store coupons, or double coupons, but it’s long been considered one of the coupon-friendliest retailers, in that it had fewer limits and restrictions than most.
But no longer. New policy changes have brought Walmart’s coupon policy in alignment with other retailers, in eliminating overage, imposing like-coupon limits, and declining to override the register if it rejects a coupon.
Walmart hasn’t touched its coupon policy in nearly six years, so it went largely unnoticed last month when the policy posted online introduced several changes. People started noticing after an image of what appeared to be an internal memo began circulating in online couponing groups, notifying store staffers that register software would be updated this week to automatically enforce the new policies.
Among the most notable changes is the elimination of overage. Walmart was among a dwindling number of retailers that would honor the full value of a coupon, no matter the actual price of the product. So if your coupon was worth more than the product you used it on, you’d get cash back or get the difference applied to your transaction.
Not anymore. The new policy states that “Walmart does not give cash back nor will any overages apply to the remaining items in the transaction if the value of a coupon is greater than the purchase value of the item.”
There’s also a new “limit of 4 identical coupons per household, per day.” The internal memo warns that “a hard stop will occur at the register” if more than four identical coupons are scanned.
And perhaps the most controversial and consequential change – no more overrides. The register now determines whether a coupon is valid, and its determination is final. The old coupon policy stated that “in select circumstances a register prompt will occur during coupon transactions that require a CSM or Management to validate the manufacturer coupon(s).” That provision has been removed from the new policy. The internal memo elaborates on that point, stating that “if the paper manufacturer coupon does not scan it should not be accepted,” and warns cashiers that “the Vendor Coupon (override) key should not be used, as using this key may result in a financial impact to the store.”
Walmart did not respond to a request for comment about the changes, or the reasons they were implemented.
But the elimination of overage will be disappointing to couponers who eagerly sought out Walmart “moneymakers,” or deals where a high-value coupon could be used on a lower-priced product to get cash back. Legitimate moneymakers are harder to find these days, but illegitimate moneymakers have created some problems for Walmart over the years, as scammers would sometimes show up with high-value counterfeit or mismatched coupons in order to utilize their local Walmart as their own personal ATM. A decade ago, two Pennsylvania women were convicted of “glitching” at several Walmart stores by using “coupons for similar but higher-priced merchandise” to buy “a large amount of lower-priced merchandise” and getting thousands of dollars in overage in the process.
The like-coupon limit is similar to what most other retailers implemented years ago, to discourage coupon misuse and shelf-clearing. Gone are the Extreme Couponing days when you could show up at the store with a hundred of the same coupon to fill up your shopping cart with freebies.
But the “no override” provision is a newer rule that other retailers have implemented, to mixed success. Walmart’s old coupon policy already stated that “paper manufacturer coupons must scan at the register” and “must validate to Walmart’s master file” of known, legitimate coupons. But the new policy states that coupons that don’t scan will be “systematically” declined. Target implemented a similar policy last year, stating that “manufacturer coupons must scan at the register, which validates to a master file of valid coupons. Coupons not on the master file are not accepted.” This resulted in some customer complaints, as their perfectly legitimate coupons were sometimes rejected, because they happened not to be included in Target’s master file.
It’s not known yet just how accurate and complete Walmart’s master file is. But according to the retailer’s new policy, if your coupon doesn’t scan in the store, even if it’s perfectly legitimate, you’re out of luck.
Those are among the major changes in Walmart’s coupon policy, but there are a few minor tweaks as well. The old policy said “Walmart reserves the right to not accept UPC-A coupon barcodes,” the old-style codes that were phased out several years ago in favor of the newer, longer GS1 bar codes. The new policy removes “reserves the right to” and flatly declares that “Walmart does not accept UPC-A coupon barcodes.” So if you have a stash of ancient coupons with long or no expiration dates, don’t try to use them at Walmart anymore.
Another minor tweak states that Walmart accepts paper coupons “for in store purchases only,” so don’t try to redeem paper coupons on your pickup or delivery order.
Finally, one tweak that’s actually in the customer’s favor. The old policy said “returns of items purchased using Manufacturer Coupons may include the coupon value returned to the customer in their original form of tender.” The new policy replaces “may” with “will.” So if you buy an item with a coupon and later return it, there’s no longer any ambiguity about the fact that you’ll get the full value of the product back and won’t lose the value of the coupon you had used.
Fewer retailers allow that anymore – Target changed its return policy earlier this year to clarify that “your return credit will not include any promotional discount or coupon that applied to the original order,” in an effort to combat return fraud, where shoppers purposely buy items with coupons in order to cash in by returning those items for a full refund.
Walmart hasn’t addressed that loophole just yet. But when it comes to overage, overrides and the use of as many of the same coupons as you’d like, couponing at Walmart won’t be quite the same anymore – for fraudsters and legitimate couponers alike.
Image source: Walmart
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