Retailer Report Card 2024

A New Year’s Resolution: A Toxic-Free Environment!

Published on February 3, 2025

The new year brings a shared resolve to make positive changes in our lives. In 2025, we’re committed to continuing to push for a safer, toxic-free material economy. Toxic chemicals have no place in our everyday environments, and shopping for safe products shouldn’t be difficult.

Released in late 2024, Toxic-Free Future’s Retailer Report Card evaluates and grades major US and Canadian retailers' efforts to eliminate hazardous chemicals and plastics from their supply chains and promote safer alternatives.

Toxic chemicals in everyday products have been found to be linked to serious health risks, including cancer, developmental delays, and hormone disruption. These chemicals often find their way into plastics, household goods, and even food packaging, creating a pervasive and dangerous cycle. 

As federal regulatory protections face threats of rollback, the need for market-based solutions is more urgent than ever. Remember that we have the power to buy or not buy. Through informed intentional purchasing, we can avoid shopping at retailers who are failing to protect shoppers from toxic chemicals. The Retailer Report Card is based on grading Four Essential Elements of a Safer Marketplace: Corporate Commitment, Transparency, Ban the Bad, and Safer Solutions. It’s important to note that these grades do not factor fair labor practices, wages, or community benefit. The grades are also based on publicly available data released by individual retailers.

What did the Retailer Report Card Find? 

Overall, most retailers are failing to protect consumers from toxic chemicals and harmful plastics, with the average grade across 50 companies being a troubling D+. 56% (28 of 50) retailers have a corporate safer chemicals policy and 16% participate in the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP), but many still scored low. Most retailers do not know or ask their suppliers about the chemical content of products, making it difficult for retailers or consumers to assess and avoid harmful hazards.  

Which retailers scored low? 

17 retailers earned failing F grades, placing them in the report’s Toxic Hall of Shame. Those failing include well-known brands such as 7-Eleven, Five Below, LL Flooring, McDonald’s, Sally Beauty, among others. Retailers with failing grades had one or more categories with a 0% score with a low average across all categories. In particular, 7-Eleven, Couche-Tard, Publix, Sherwin-Williams, and Trader Joe’s scored 0% on all four evaluation categories. The retailer report card also shows that restaurant chains and dollar stores that tend to be in  low-income communities and communities of color ranked low. This disproportionately impacts communities who may not have access to safer alternatives. Read the Report for the complete list. 

Which retailers scored high? 

Apple, Sephora, Target, and Walmart achieved the highest scores for their commitment to restrict toxic chemicals. Ulta Beauty improved the most by nearly doubling its score since they were first evaluated. More than one in three retailers improved their scores compared to past reports. It is Important to look at individual scores for each category to better understand their scores. For example, a retailer can score high for Corporate Commitment, but score much lower for other categories and vice versa. 

We are urging all retailers and suppliers to publicly commit to protecting shoppers through stronger chemical policies and to take sufficient action to remove toxic chemicals from their shelves. Policy and action must be done together to ensure safer products for all consumers. 

What Can We Do to Push for a Safer Marketplace?  

Being an informed consumer can push the market towards scientific innovation. The Retailer Report Card is not just a critique, it’s a guide for retailers to clean up their act, and for communities to demand better. Many of the stores mentioned in the Retailer Report Card have locations in Michigan, and these grades can guide where we choose to shop or not. Our purchasing power can be an advocacy tool to push retailers towards pulling toxic chemicals from their shelves and instead, offering safer solutions. Using our power as customers can also push companies and governments to invest time and resources to identify safer alternatives for hazardous chemicals. 

Retailers in the Toxic Hall of Shame need to hear from you. 

Join us in urging retailers to commit to safer products and improved transparency.

Here’s how to take action:

  1. Read the Report: Learn more about the 2024 Retailer Report Card key findings here.
  2. Contact Retailers: Click here to send a message to CEOs of failing retailers.
  3. Be a conscious shopper: Support local businesses with passing grades and transparent practices. Ask local small businesses who aren’t part of this report whether or not they are trying to remove toxic chemicals from their shelves. Find those who are leading the charge toward safer products.
  4. Participate in a no buy challenge: the most sustainable product is the one that isn’t purchased. Check out our More Life, Less Stuff series to get inspiration! 

Together, we can drive change, one purchase, one policy, one campaign at a time.