June 5, 2025 (National Legal and Policy Center) –
NLPC presented a shareholder proposal today at Walmart Inc.‘s 2025 annual meeting of shareholders that asked the company to revisit its plastics packaging policies, to implement serious scientific and economic analyses instead of following liberal agenda priorities.
The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on page 114 of its proxy statement.
NLPC’s response to the board’s opposition statement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, after circulating it to other investors that own millions of voting shares in the company. Presenting the proposal at the meeting was Paul Chesser, director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. An audio recording of his presentation can be found here, and a transcript of his three-minute remarks follows:
There has been a lot of discussion recently about the effect of tariffs on American businesses and consumer prices.
Walmart is a top U.S. company of concern, due to many families’ dependence on the Company for low-cost household goods and groceries.
Walmart received quite a backlash after its CFO said last month that “the higher tariffs will result in higher prices.”
President Trump said Walmart should “EAT THE TARIFFS.”
Walmart then put out a statement that said, “We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins.”
However, when it comes to tariffs, for years Walmart has imposed its OWN tariffs — on itself.
And its customers, many whom struggle economically, pay the price.
So do shareholders in terms of reduced profits.
This tariff that Walmart imposes on itself is called a “plastics tariff.”
Let me explain.
Walmart is the top driver in retail, due to its omnipresence, as to how vendors manufacture products and packaging, so they can earn Walmart’s business.
When it comes to plastics, Walmart is at the forefront in demanding that recycled content goes into, and that recyclable content is the result, from the packaging of many of the items it sells.
These can be items such as food sold in its in-store bakeries or delis, or store-brand items sold in its pharmacy or supermarket.
About sixty percent of Walmart’s sales are from food and beverages.
Thus, when Walmart demands a packaging vendor to include 25 percent recycled content in a plastic clamshell container for its bakery goods, it significantly adds to the cost of that container, and thus to the price of that product.
Worse, it does not improve the environment – it instead worsens it, because the required amount of plastic input is greater.
A test we ran for one such container, using an online app sponsored by Walmart that calculates different outcomes based on recycled content inputs, showed far more plastic pollution was generated, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, by putting recycled content into the package versus using virgin plastic material.
You can see the results on our website, NLPC.org.
But the crowning blow is the extra cost.
In the sample we ran, the cost to Walmart for that package is 58 percent higher to produce for having recycled content, versus a version without recycled content.
In other words, this is a 58 percent “plastics tariff” that Walmart imposes on itself.
And as we all know, somebody has to pay for it – either shareholders or customers, mostly.
Please vote FOR Proposal Number 7 to oppose plastics tariffs at Walmart.
Read NLPC’s shareholder proposal for the Walmart annual meeting here.
Listen to Paul Chesser’s presentation of the proposal at the meeting here.
Read NLPC’s response, filed with the SEC, to the company’s opposition to our shareholder proposal, here.
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