Sustainable Marketplace
We are committed to driving responsible sourcing practices throughout our supply chain, protecting human rights, and engaging with suppliers around ethical and environmental issues.
We want to be transparent about the origins and ingredients of our owned brand products. By working with our suppliers, we have cut our impact on the environment and continue to strive for greater accountability throughout our business.
100+
Of our owned-brand product suppliers have signed up to our Global Suppliers Sustainability Program
100%
Of chemicals eliminated from certain categories of owned brand products on our Restricted Substances List
100%
Of Palm Oil in Boots UK and No7 Beauty products from certified sustainable sources
We want to drive sustainable approaches and practices with our suppliers by sharing knowledge and resources to create more sustainable, innovative practices and combat the risk of modern slavery.
In 2021, we launched our global Supplier Sustainability Program to drive improvements across our entire supply chain. It uses an online platform for data collection, analysis, reporting and scoring. This means we can benchmark sustainability performance and see the best opportunities for change.
Now, more than 100 of our owned-brand product suppliers across Asia, Europe and the Americas have signed up to the program, with many more coming on board all the time.
In 2021, we enhanced our already rigorous onboarding process for our owned brand suppliers, so they are aware of, and are compliant with, WBA ethical standards and expectations. We also regularly hold supplier training webinars in multiple languages, with almost 336 suppliers completing the training so far.
As the COVID-19 pandemic limited our ability to conduct onsite assessments, we developed new approaches to monitor supplier compliance, including self-assessment questionnaires, reviews of third-party audit reports, remote confirmation of the resolution of identified non-compliances, and remote virtual audits.
At WBA, we understand that our customers want to feel confident in the safety and transparency of the products they purchase for use. The products we sell are rigorously analyzed for compliance with all applicable laws and regulations and our high standards. Our Chemical Policy Statement details how we assess and restrict the use of certain chemicals or ingredients in products sold in our stores and online through our chemicals management program.
Our Chemical Policy Statement, details how we assess and restrict the use of certain chemicals or ingredients in baby, personal care, beauty and household cleaning products within our owned brands, sold in our stores and online through our chemicals management program.
In 2018, we created a Restricted Substance List to address environmental and ethical issues and customer concerns over safety. Now, 100 percent of in-scope products and categories are compliant as we continue to drive innovation in finding safer chemicals.
Packaging waste is a growing societal concern and because of limitations on recycling and circularity, plastic packaging is a particular emphasis for us. We have been surveying suppliers for our U.S. owned brands for the past two years and are collaborating with several organizations seeking industry-wide solutions.
We’re also working with groups including the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and Retail Industry Leaders Association to reduce packaging and aim to reduce plastic packaging by 30% by 2025 for UK owned brands and by 2030 for US owned brands. We also want to ensure that 100% of plastic packaging is reusable or recyclable by consumers in the coming years and eliminate all problematic or single-use packaging.
