Executive Summary

Highlights

The 2024 Retailer Report Card found that:

Corporate Commitment

More than half of retailers committed to adopting safer chemical policies: 56 percent of retailers have a corporate commitment to avoid the use of chemicals and plastics of high concern.

Retailers on average were most likely to earn points for Corporate Commitment, primarily through adopting safer chemicals policies. Unfortunately, these commitments were not always backed up by sufficient action to ensure safer solutions.

Transparency

More than half of retailers, 54 percent, are NOT asking suppliers for information on ingredients in products or packaging.

Most retailers do not ask their suppliers for any ingredient information. Except for cleaning products, personal care products, and cosmetics, most products don’t come with a chemical ingredient label. Without knowing what chemicals or plastics are being used, it is impossible for retailers to assess the hazards. This leaves customers and retailers in the dark about the safety of products. Only a few retailers, like Apple, have made meaningful progress in advancing supply chain disclosure of chemicals in other kinds of products.

Ban the Bad

Most retailers are banning dangerous chemicals and harmful plastics: 68 percent of retailers have made progress reducing toxic chemicals and plastics through ban the bad policies.

Retailers continue to make progress banning hazardous chemicals and plastics. Responding to growing public and regulatory pressure, many retailers are taking steps to reduce or eliminate specific chemicals and materials, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals,” and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), the “poison plastic”. Unfortunately, most retailers are not using this opportunity to ensure that replacements are safer.

Safer Solutions

Minimal progress is being made on safer solutions, with 80 percent of retailers failing to ensure safer solutions to toxic chemicals and plastics.

A critical component to achieve safer products and packaging is to assess the hazards of chemicals and plastics and to choose the least hazardous. The majority of retailers do not have any criteria for safer products and packaging. The report card holds companies to a standard of “safer” adopted by the state of Washington, which is the only regulatory definition in the country. Only a handful of companies are leading the pack in this safer solutions category, including Apple, Target, Amazon, Walmart, and Sephora—proving that it is possible to implement corporate policies that both restrict toxic chemicals and plastics and drive the market to safer solutions. Both Sephora and Ulta Beauty, for example, are making the grade using innovative programs like ChemFORWARD’s Know Better Do Better, which is helping beauty retailers assess the hazards of thousands of ingredients and increase the use of those that are safer.

Lowest scores went to restaurants and dollar store chains.

Restaurant chains and dollar stores ranked, on average, the lowest among the retailer sectors evaluated. Retailers in these sectors must step up to protect consumers, especially low-income communities and communities of color, that tend to frequent many of these chains.