Senior Advisor, Sycamore Partners
Sustainable Marketplace
Providing quality, safe products and services to our customers with a focus on traceability, transparency and ethical sourcing
Walgreens Boots Alliance expects products are produced in responsible ways and has the same expectations for our suppliers. As our products have grown over the years, we continue to use our influence to prioritize sustainability and fair labor practices in their production. WBA’s goals help keep us and our supplier partners accountable and we are encouraged by our shared progress.
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Plastic fibers in Boots UK wet wipes
82%
Active suppliers providing WBA data via the Product Sustainability Hub
$726M
Walgreens spend for diverse Tier 1 suppliers by end of fiscal 2023
1000+
Supplier ethical sourcing assessments
100%
Palm oil used by WBA certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in calendar year 2022
“Our brands are some of the most recognized and trusted in the world and it is our responsibility and privilege to ensure the trust and special place they have earned in the hearts of our customers over the years never wavers.”
Rajnish Kapur
Senior Vice President, Chief Sourcing and Supply Chain Officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance
WBA and its owned brand product portfolio covers a diverse range of categories. We continually develop and update our portfolio ingredients and packaging to meet our own evolving standards as well as changing demands. As we look for ways to innovate and improve, we are focused on sourcing and packaging these consumer goods safely, responsibly, ethically and sustainably.
No7 Beauty Company is a group of highly respected skin care and beauty brands, some of which date back to 1935. No7 Beauty Company continues to develop products through worldclass innovation, sustainable sourcing practices and industry-leading consumer behavior insights.
Walgreens, Nice!, and Complete Home are synonymous with quality and aim to live up to our century-old code: honest goods sold to honest people by honest methods. Our brands and products include a variety of goods in numerous categories.
From healthcare and beauty essentials to quality sunscreen, Boots-owned brands, including Boots Soltan, Boots Brand Healthcare and 17, provide affordable, accessible products customers know, love and trust.
Customers, team members and potential new hires are increasingly demanding products that are ethically sourced and made with sustainable materials. At WBA we are rising to this challenge and continuing to work with suppliers who share common principles of fair and honest business; demonstrate a commitment to maintaining safe working conditions; fully comply with all legal requirements; and comply with labor, health and safety standards in the countries where they and we operate. This means screening all suppliers and selecting partners that consider social and environmental factors.
We prioritize this responsible supplier engagement and sourcing practices through foundational standards, policies and core principles that govern our interactions.
WBA is committed to inclusive communities and understands that when our shelves are a reflection of our local communities, it benefits everyone. This is especially true when it comes to working with a diverse set of suppliers. Walgreens remains committed to our goal to source goods and services from suppliers owned by women, people of color, veterans and service-disabled veterans, people with disabilities and those who identify as LGBTQ+. This focus will continue to provide financial opportunity to businesses owned by people who may be socially or economically disadvantaged, helping to address income and employment challenges that can serve as social determinants of health.
WBA set a target to spend $700 million with diverse Tier 1 suppliers in the U.S. by the end of fiscal 2023. This target was an increase of $75 million. compared with fiscal 2022. We exceeded our target by $26 million.
At WBA, we are committed to ensuring the ingredients and materials used within our owned brand products and packaging are safe for our consumers, communities and planet. We strive to reduce the environmental and social impacts of the ingredients and materials we use by improving their traceability, implementing third-party certification requirements, protecting the rights of workers and supporting the responsible sourcing of raw materials.
WBA is committed to improving the traceability of raw materials used in our products to reduce environmental and social impacts. We prohibit the use of illegally cultivated and harvested sources. Threatened or endangered species are not to be used in any of our products or their ingredients. We strongly encourage sourcing of raw materials that have been independently certified to a recognized environmental, ethical or social standard.
Palm oil is the world’s most widely used vegetable oil with yields outperforming other vegetable oils due to its efficient land use. However, in some areas this crop and its production has been linked with environmental and human rights violations. Understanding its vital importance to many of our products and the need to ensure sustainable farming practices, Boots was one of the first retailers to join Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2006. For the first time in calendar 2023, WBA submitted company-wide owned brand palm oil data for calendar 2022 as part of the RSPO annual reporting requirement.
Some of our skincare and beauty brands, such as Liz Earle, use shea butter as a moisturizer in skincare products. WBA has been a member of the nonprofit Global Shea Alliance (GSA) since fiscal 2019, supporting its mission to promote industry sustainability, quality practices and standards around shea butter. Supporting the GSA allows us to help support women who harvest shea in Ghana and to give back to communities that work in the shea industry.
We are committed to working with suppliers to ensure wood pulp and paper materials used in products and packaging are not contributing to deforestation, ecosystem loss or illegal harvesting. Boots-owned brands and the No7 Beauty Company require all wood, pulp and paper materials come from verified recycled sources with at least 50% post-consumer content, or from responsibly managed forests.
Cotton wool has an immense environmental impact from water usage to biodiversity degradation. Starting in fiscal 2023 and moving forward, Boots will ensure all cotton wool products in owned-brand products are Global Organic Textiles Standard (GOTS) certified, meaning the crop is farmed without the use of toxic persistent pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Additionally, in fiscal 2023, WBA strengthened our supply chain transparency approach for products containing cotton due to the ongoing risk
We engage with numerous organizations, competitors, trade associations and government entities to seek industry-wide solutions and take meaningful action toward sustainability. These engagements are crucial to WBA acting as an industry leader and continuing to drive the industry forward.
In fiscal 2023, Liz Earle Beauty Co. and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched a three-year partnership to protect the UK’s natural habitats and help restore biodiversity for future generations. As part of this three-year partnership, Liz Earle committed to raising funds for WWF to support Seagrass Project and host overall awareness drives around the importance of and need to protect biodiversity.
Walgreens is a collaborator of the Sustainable Medicines Partnership (SMP) and member of the Steering Committee. The SMP is a private-public collaboration executing projects to make the use of medicines more sustainable. The partnership delivers evidence-based integrated projects, including scalable solutions, frameworks, standards, metrics and implementation toolkits.
Boots and No7 Beauty Company joined as signatories to the EcoBeautyScore Consortium in July 2022. The consortium is a collaboration of major global cosmetics companies that seek to establish a transparent global environmental impact scoring system.
