Most of the largest retailers in the United States and Canada are failing to protect customers from toxic chemicals and harmful plastics found in the products and packaging sold on store shelves, says the 2024 Retailer Report Card.
- The report by Toxic-Free Future finds that the average grade for retailers is a D+, with 17 retailers earning failing F grades, placing them in the report’sToxic Hall of Shame.
- Failing retailers include well-known brands such as 7-Eleven, Five Below, LL Flooring, McDonald’s, and Sally Beauty, among others.
- Some companies, including Amazon, Office Depot, Staples, Target, and Walmart are getting credit in the Retailer Report Card for selling private-label products that are EPA Safer Choice certified. This certification is one of the only third-party certifications that fully evaluates the hazards of all chemical ingredients, ensuring chemicals are verifiably safer.
THE 2024 RETAILER REPORT CARD analysed 50 major US and Canadian retailers, including their subsidiaries, representing 160 businesses that generate over $4 trillion in annual revenue and hold significant influence over the use of toxic chemicals in their supply chains.
- Toxic-Free Future’s Retailer Report Card assigns grades based on the company’s efforts to eliminate hazardous chemicals and plastics from their supply chains and ensure safer solutions.
As a positive takeaway, the report found more than half of retailers are banning some dangerous chemicals and harmful plastics, with 68% percent of retailers making progress reducing certain toxic chemicals and plastics such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) “forever chemicals” and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.
- Mind the Store, Toxic-Free Future’s market transformation programme, challenges the nation’s largest retailers to adopt robust policies to eliminate the most toxic chemicals and plastics in products, packaging, and global supply chains. These efforts make items on store shelves safer and drive change on a global scale.
Highlights from the 2024 Retailer Report Card:
- Four companies show leadership towards safer products: Apple, Sephora, Target, and Walmart are leading the charge toward safer solutions, earning an A- or higher, with policies in place to ban the worst chemicals and plastics and invest in safer alternatives, proving that it is possible.
- Minimal progress on safer solutions: 80% of retailers failed to implement policies that ensure safer alternatives to harmful chemicals and plastics – a critical component to achieve a safer marketplace.
- Lack of transparency: More than half of the retailers evaluated (54%) do not ask their suppliers to disclose the chemical ingredients used in their products. Without full transparency, it is impossible to assess the safety of chemicals in products sold to consumers.
- Toxic-Free Future’s new roadmap, The Four Essential Elements for a Safer Marketplace, provides an enhanced grading system that gives a clear roadmap for retailers to follow to protect public health by selling safer products and packaging without harmful plastics and chemicals.
RECOMMENDATIONS: The report outlines clear steps that retailers must take to improve their performance and protect public health. These include embracing The Four Essential Elements for a Safer Marketplace, which includes: adopting comprehensive safer chemicals policies; requiring full transparency from suppliers; restricting toxic chemicals and plastics, such as PFAS and PVC, in products and packaging; and implementing safer solutions to chemicals and plastics of high concern.
- For the first time, the report also evaluates retailers against the Ban the Bad Priority List, a list of chemicals, chemical classes, and plastics of high concern that retailers should prioritize for reduction and elimination.
THE CONTEXT: Research has shown that exposure to toxic chemicals and plastics in everyday products can disrupt hormones, impact fertility, and even increase the risk of pregnancy complications. Retailers must take immediate action to reduce the presence of harmful chemicals such as PFAS and toxic plastics in the products we use, so that women and their families can make safer choices for their health and well-being.
- The Retailer Report Card is published at a time when retailers are facing increasing regulatory, reputational, and financial risks. A growing number of states, from Washington to Maine, are enacting laws banning PFAS and other hazardous chemicals.
- Washington state has the only regulatory definition of “safer,” which Mind the Store urges retailers to adopt.
- In addition, the US EPA is considering whether to regulate harmful petrochemicals such as the PVC plastic feedstock chemicals ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride. Additionally, world leaders are preparing to finalise the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty in November 2024.
TOXIC-FREE FUTURE is a national leader in environmental health research and advocacy. Through the power of science, education, and activism, Toxic-Free Future drives strong laws and corporate responsibility that protects the health of all people and the planet.
WHAT THEY SAID
Simply banning toxic chemicals isn’t enough–retailers must go further to ensure that replacements are truly safer for consumers, communities, and workers. Apple, Sephora, Target, and Walmart are setting a strong standard, scoring highest overall. With the holiday shopping season upon us, it’s time for more retailers to follow their lead andmind the store.
— Mike Schade
Co-author / Director
2024 Retailer Report Card / Toxic-Free Future’s Mind the Store programme
With PFAS in our drinking water and toxics found in black plastic spatulas, it is shocking how little retailers are doing to help solve this health crisis linked to hazardous chemicals and plastics in consumer products. Retailers must require ingredient transparency, ban the most hazardous chemicals and plastics in products and packaging, and invest in safer solutions.
— Cheri Peele
Co-author / Senior Project Manager
2024 Retailer Report Card / Toxic-Free Future
