Phaseout of toxins ramps up at retailer

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. began sending letters to hundreds of its consumer product suppliers Thursday detailing new requirements for phasing out harmful chemicals from their ingredient lists.

The mandate applies to products sold in U.S. Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Clubs in categories including health and beauty aids, babycare products, pet supplies and household laundry and cleaning products.

The latest version of the company’s Policy on Sustainable Chemistry in Consumables calls for suppliers to disclose all product ingredients online beginning next January, and for vendors to divulge ingredients on Wal-Mart’s “priority chemicals” list on the product package by January 2018. Wal-Mart began disclosing information about the makeup of its private-label products, beginning with cleaning products, last month.

The initiative is by far the largest and most ambitious of its kind, said Michelle Mauthe Harvey, who established the Bentonville office of the Environmental Defense Fund to work specifically with the world’s largest retailer in 2007.

“It reflects a growing trend in which consumer and wholesale purchasing power are combining to change the chemical makeup of the products we see on store shelves and bring into our homes,” Harvey said. The Environmental Defense Fund is a U.S.-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

Chris Schraeder, senior manager for sustainability communications at Wal-Mart, said the policy serves as “a road map that will help suppliers of consumable products to transparently disclose product ingredients and transition to greener substitutes for priority chemicals.”

A list of roughly 10 “high priority” chemicals - those targeted for reduction, restriction and elimination - has been shared with suppliers but not been disclosed publicly,Harvey said. Wal-Mart defines a priority chemical as as one that “meets the criteria for classification as a carcinogen, mutagen, reproductive toxicant, or is persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic; or any chemical for which there is scientific evidence of probable serious effects to human health or the environment which give rise to an equivalent level of concern.”

The priority chemicals list was built from authoritative,scientific and regulatory reference lists, Harvey said. At the her group’s advice, Wal-Mart is singling out products “used in close proximity to the body, either on [the body] or in the home,” Harvey said.

Work on the policy has been years in the making. The challenge comes in finding safer alternatives that don’t increase costs.

“Consumers should not have to choose between what they can afford and what’s good for their families,” former Wal-Mart President and CEO Mike Duke said last September at the company’s Global Sustainability Milestone Meeting in Bentonville. The meetings are conducted on an irregular basis to inform stakeholders, environmental experts, suppliers and others about what Wal-Mart is doing to meet its long-term sustainability goals.

More than 80,000 different chemicals are associated with Wal-Mart’s consumable-products business, and the 80 percent of Americans who shop at Wal-Mart use about nine products every day. The list of formulated - or chemical intensive - consumer products listed in Wal-Mart’s policy is expected to grow, the Environmental Defense Fund said.

Suppliers use a third-party online reporting system, The Wercs, which protects proprietary information, Harvey said.

When Harvey opened her office in Bentonville, her first conversation with Wal-Mart was about chemicals.

“We thought it was one of the areas where they could take leadership,” Harvey said.

“It’s been a long and challenging road, but it’s led us exactly where we hoped to be,” she said in a blog post on her group’s website Thursday. “Now the responsibility falls on suppliers to deliver the goods and on Wal-Mart to make sure everyone keeps their eye on the ball.”

Business, Pages 27 on 02/28/2014

Upcoming Events