Walmart, CPG giants to track sourcing from women-owned businesses

Walmart said the effort would raise awareness for the importance of sourcing from women-owned businesses. 

This marks the first time the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the largest third-party certifier of businesses owned, controlled and operated by women in the U.S., will launch a formal initiative to publicly report aggregated spending on women-owned businesses. Other participating corporations are Campbell Soup Co., Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Mondelēz, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble.

Walmart made the announcement on behalf of the other companies involved and WBENC at Walmart’s Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Summit in Washington, D.C.

This announcement comes on the heels of the culmination of Walmart’s five-year Global WEE Initiative, which included a set of goals to help empower women around the world through sourcing, training and supporting diversity and inclusion. As part of the WEE Initiative, Walmart sourced $20 billion from women-owned businesses in the U.S. and increased sourcing from women-owned businesses internationally.

Walmart also helped fund the creation of the “Women-Owned” logo, which can be used by any woman-owned supplier certified by those organizations at any retailer to highlight their products to consumers. Today, Walmart has more than 1,500 suppliers who identify as women-owned businesses, producing everything from apparel to produce.