ESG guidelines reward retailers for not just selling LGBT merchandise but buying from such suppliers
Similar to Target, Walmart’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) report reveals that the company makes special provisions for LGBT groups, including specifically sourcing supplies from people professing such identities.
Target has been the focus of boycott calls due to offering Pride products this year aimed at children. Target’s 2022 ESG report (pdf) shows that at least 51 percent of its suppliers are “owned, controlled and operated by women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, veterans or people with disabilities.” In addition, 59 percent of their Pride Month assortment was created by LGBT creators and brands.
Walmart has also been shown to conduct an “inclusive sourcing” program for LGBT groups. Walmart’s supplier inclusion initiative offers companies, owned and operated by members of LGBT and other identities like ethnic and racial minorities, “the opportunity to work with us while growing their business,” according to Walmart’s July 2022 ESG report. “For our U.S. businesses, we sourced more than $13.3 billion in goods and services from approximately 2,600 diverse suppliers.”
ESG principles make companies look beyond making profits and focus on taking actions related to issues like climate change, racism, and sexual identity, among others. It is adopted by companies mainly to appease large investors like BlackRock that use these metrics to evaluate whether to invest or not. ESG investing has been receiving blowback in recent times from conservative-led states.
Walmart received a full 100 points on The Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). To get a perfect CEI score, an organization has to donate to LGBT causes as well as refuse to donate to non-religious organizations that oppose such causes. The organization must also support gender transitioning.
It scored 30/30 for Workforce Protections, including “sexual orientation for all operations” and “gender identity or expression for all operations.” Walmart scored 30/30 for Inclusive Benefits, which includes “equal health coverage for transgender individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care.”
The company scored 40/40 for supporting an “inclusive culture.” The score was the result of Walmart meeting two CEI criteria on LGBT—that three LGBT internal training and education best practices as well as three efforts of outreach to the broader LGBT community be implemented.
In 2021, Walmart donated $500,000 to PFLAG, the largest organization in the United States that advocates for LGBT and their families.
