The Home Depot Inc: Sustainable Packaging Policies
WHEREAS: Without immediate and sustained new commitments to make packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable, and reduce overall plastic use, annual flows of plastics into oceans could nearly triple by 2040.[1] The authoritative study Breaking the Plastic Wave, by Pew Charitable Trusts (“Pew Report”), concludes that if all current industry and government commitments were met, ocean plastic deposition would be reduced by only 7%.[2]
Improved recycling must be coupled with reductions in use, materials redesign, and substitution. The Pew Report concludes that plastic demand should be reduced by at least one-third to cut ocean plastic pollution 80% by 2040, and that reducing plastic production is the most attractive solution from environmental, economic, and social perspectives. Many governments and major brands have committed to significant cuts in the use of virgin and single-use plastics.[3]
The growing plastic pollution crisis poses increasing risk to Home Depot. Corporations could face an annual financial risk of approximately $100 billion should governments require them to cover the waste management costs of the packaging they produce, a policy that is increasingly being enacted around the globe.[4]
While Home Depot has taken initial steps to partner with suppliers to target the reduction of 200 million pounds of virgin plastic by 2028, or convert them to recycled or alternative materials, it has not disclosed its total plastic footprint, leaving investors unsure about the impact of its commitment.[5]
Competitors Walmart and Target have adopted goals to make their private brand plastic packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025, and Lowe’s has agreed to do the same by 2030. Home Depot is also notably absent from participation in the largest pre-competitive corporate initiative to address plastic pollution, the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.
Reducing the Company’s overall plastic packaging and making all packaging recyclable are necessary steps to combat the plastic pollution crisis. Our Company is overdue to take action on this important issue.
BE IT RESOLVED: Shareholders request the Board issue a report, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information, describing how the Company could match its peers by committing to make all its packaging curbside recyclable, reusable, or compostable.
SUPPORTING STATEMENT: The report should, at Board discretion:
Quantify the weight of total plastic packaging used by the Company;
Set a time-bound goal to make all its packaging curbside recyclable, reusable, or compostable; and
Describe planned reduction strategies or goals, materials redesign, transition to reusables, substitution, or reductions in Company use of plastic packaging.
[1] https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2020/07/breakingtheplasticwave_report.pdf, p.4
[2] https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2020/07/breakingtheplasticwave_report.pdf, p.13
[3] https://gc-data.emf.org/; https://www.asyousow.org/press-releases/2021/10/6/walmart-commits-plastic-reduction-goal;
[4] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/canada-bans-single-use-plastics; https://www.packworld.com/news/sustainability/article/22419036/four-states-enact-packaging-epr-laws; https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/plastics/single-use-plastics_en
[5] https://ecoactions.homedepot.com/blog/plastic-reduction-earth-day-2024/#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%202028,to%20recycled%20or%20alternative%20materials
Resolution Details
Company: The Home Depot Inc.
Lead Filers:
As You Sow
Year: 2025
Filing Date:
November 2024
Initiative(s): Consumer Packaging
Status: Filed