Who is Kathleen McLaughlin, Walmart’s CSO?
From its beginnings as a small discount retailer in Arkansas, Walmart has become perhaps the most well-known name in retail.
It operates more than 10,000 stores and employs more than two million people – unquestionably an enormous impact.
Kathleen McLaughlin is Walmart’s Chief Sustainability Officer, responsible for how the company is trying to have a positive impact on the world.
Her teams work with Walmart associates, suppliers, nonprofit organisations and countless others to make improvements to ESG systems.
She also serves as Chair of the Walmart Foundation Board of Directors, its corporate philanthropy arm.
Kathleen has been recognised as number three in Sustainability Magazine’s Top 250 Women in Sustainability 2025.
Kathleen McLaughlin’s career
Kathleen earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Boston University and a Master of Arts in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University.
Before joining Walmart in 2013, she spent more than 20 years with McKinsey & Company where she led work in strategy and organisation transformation.
She joined Walmart as its Chief Sustainability Officer and was President of the Walmart Foundation before becoming Chair of its Board of Directors in 2024.
Under her leadership, Walmart has engaged nearly 6,000 suppliers through Project Gigaton, the company’s ambition to reduce or avoid one billion tonnes of greenhouse gases from its global value chain by 2030.
The company achieved this six years early in 2024.
Walmart’s sustainability goals
Walmart aims to reach zero emissions across its global operations by 2040 – without carbon offsets.
To help achieve this, it aims to harvest enough wind, solar and other energy sources to power its facilities with 100% renewable energy by 2035 and transition to low impact refrigerants for cooling and electrified equipment for heating by 2040.
“We must all take urgent, sustained action to reverse nature loss and emissions before we reach a tipping point from which we will not recover,” Kathleen says.
“People have pushed past the earth's natural limits. Healthy societies, resilient economies and thriving businesses rely on nature.
“Our vision at Walmart is to help transform food and product supply chains to be regenerative, working in harmony with nature - to protect, restore and sustainably use our natural resources.”
Sustainability initiatives at Walmart
Approximately one third of all food produced for human consumption goes to waste, also wasting the resources that went into producing it.
Walmart is targeting food waste by increasing the sell-through of its food products and donating unpurchased items to food banks and other charities.
In FY22, it donated more than 310 thousand tonnes of food in the US alone.
In partnership with organic materials recycler Denali, more than 1,400 stores have tech to help staff more easily separate unsold food from its packaging.
The programme, called Zero Depack, removes expired food, which is destined for the waste stream, from its packaging.
The Walmart Foundation is also working with Goodwill Industries International to conduct a world-first traceability study.
It hopes to inform reuse and recycling strategies and help to shape industry standards for traceability and product lifecycle stewardship.
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