Walmart’s New Forest Policy Raises Expectations but Lowers Accountability
On July 31, Walmart updated its Deforestation and Conversion-Free (DCF) Policy, replacing its January 2024 Forests Policy. As the world’s largest retailer, Walmart has a unique responsibility to drive deforestation-free supply chains.
The updated policy includes positive steps. Walmart maintains a December 31, 2020 no-conversion cut-off; expands its priority commodities to include cocoa, coffee and avocados; and commits to strengthening beef and soy traceability through geo-monitoring and other tools.
However, these improvements are outweighed by major weaknesses. Most concerning, Walmart has removed its commitment to achieve DCF supply chains by the end of 2025. At a time when forests are under unprecedented pressure, companies should be accelerating implementation—not removing deadlines.
The policy also remains too limited, covering only selected regions and products while excluding major deforestation hotspots such as Bolivia. It also fails to explicitly require traders to comply with the Amazon Soy Moratorium and its 2008 cut-off date, despite growing attacks on one of the world’s most effective forest protection measures.
Finally, Walmart should introduce a transparent public grievance mechanism, similar to Carrefour’s, allowing stakeholders to raise credible alerts and track how non-compliance is investigated and addressed.
Walmart deserves credit for strengthening parts of its policy, but leadership requires being DCF compliant now, applying the policy across all forest-risk commodities and sourcing regions, requiring compliance with the Amazon Soy Moratorium, introducing transparent accountability mechanisms, and suspending suppliers and traders that fail to comply.
Forests are burning across the world while companies continue to weaken deadlines. Retailers must stop delaying implementation and deliver DCF compliance now.
