Walmart

public company

Walmart

Industry Retail

A public big-box and grocery retailer with vast low-price reach, major labor and supplier effects, and shareholder-governed control. Walmart remains weak because of ecological harm, toxic or materially harmful products, and ideological disavowal, even where the product or service has practical value.

Why this matters: Everyday low prices can benefit consumers while shifting power away from workers and suppliers.

Letter grade D Extractive High confidence (AI) Rubric gcd-rubric-v1

Final Score 9* D - Extractive
DEXTRACTIVE9 tentative score pts

* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.

Base Material20
Bonus+0
Cap35Ownership <= 2 and Governance <= 2
After Cap20
Penalties-11
G
Private Government badge

Walmart receives the Private Government badge because it combines large-scale private rule-setting over customers, workers, users, members, or counterparties with OpenLobby-documented lobbying of about $800K on public policy issues.

Evidence: [15]

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Evaluation Overview

D - Extractive

The score turns mainly on Extraction, with the largest penalty coming from Policy Capture.

Strengths

  • Extraction3/10
  • Market Conduct3/5
  • Product Integrity3/5

Penalties

  • Policy Capture-4
  • Ecological Harm-2
  • High-Carbon Products-2
  • Toxic Products-2

Evidence state

  • ConfidenceHigh confidence (AI)
  • ThoroughnessPartial (AI)
  • Linked claims15
  • Direct axis claims14
  • Coverage14/14

Scoring Axes
Axis Score Why this score
Ownership
?
Control rights: shareholder-dominated at 0, worker cooperative control at 10.
1 / 10

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 12 scored entries below, 65 tied, 149 above on Ownership.

Linked evidence
  • Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
Governance
?
Binding decision authority: centralized control at 0, democratic stakeholder control at 10.
1 / 10

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 2 scored entries below, 68 tied, 156 above on Governance.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart's annual report and proxy describe a shareholder-governed corporation employing about 2.1 million associates worldwide, so workers, suppliers, and customers remain subject to corporate rules they do not democratically set. [3]
Extraction
?
Surplus allocation, wage share, CEO pay ratio, margins, and structured extraction judgment.
3 / 10

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 39 scored entries below, 22 tied, 165 above on Extraction.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart's $681 billion fiscal-year revenue and global workforce scale show a mass retail model where low prices coexist with centralized shareholder control over labor, suppliers, and retail surplus. [4]
Labor Sovereignty
?
Worker power: coercive conditions at 0, co-determination or ownership at 7. Employee dissatisfaction matters only when source-backed evidence shows concrete limits on worker agency, such as coercive scheduling, retaliation, wage theft, harassment, unsafe conditions, suppression of worker voice, or extreme turnover.
2 / 7

Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 8 scored entries below, 36 tied, 182 above on Labor Sovereignty.

Linked evidence
  • Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
Solidarity with the Unemployed
?
Treatment of exits and nonworkers, including severance, redeployment, and non-competes.
2 / 7

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 31 scored entries below, 49 tied, 146 above on Solidarity with the Unemployed.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart reports a very large workforce and investments in wages, healthcare, and education, but those benefits remain corporate programs rather than worker-controlled protections for people excluded from or leaving the company. [5]
Loss-Bearing Fidelity
?
Willingness to absorb costs to preserve values, workers, users, and public obligations.
2 / 7

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 33 scored entries below, 14 tied, 179 above on Loss-Bearing Fidelity.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart's annual reporting emphasizes global associates, suppliers, business partners, and communities, making loss-bearing fidelity only partial because the business model's costs are distributed through a vast supply chain outside stakeholder control. [6]
Market Conduct
?
Pricing fairness, switching costs, lock-in, and rent extraction.
3 / 5

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 54 scored entries below, 51 tied, 121 above on Market Conduct.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart's scale and low-price retail reach provide real consumer value, but the same scale gives the company private gatekeeping power over suppliers, local retail markets, and household shopping access. [7]
Product Integrity
?
Preservation of quality rather than degradation for monetization.
3 / 5

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 37 scored entries below, 23 tied, 166 above on Product Integrity.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart sells genuinely useful groceries, pharmacy items, and household goods, but product integrity is limited by mixed toxic-product exposure and a retail model optimized for scale rather than strong product stewardship. [8]
Scale Integrity
?
Whether growth improves or degrades fairness and accountability.
3 / 5

Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 50 scored entries below, 58 tied, 118 above on Scale Integrity.

Linked evidence
  • context Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company. [1]
  • context Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale. [2]
  • Walmart's revenue, store, workforce, and supply-chain scale make it broadly useful but also weaken local accountability and magnify labor, supplier, ecological, and product-stewardship concerns. [9]

Penalties
Penalty Applied Why this penalty
Ecological Harm
?
Footprint, trajectory, irreversibility, culpability, and scale, including whether ecological harm is central to the model and continued after credible notice. Range: -30 to 0.
-2

Walmart publishes sustainability reporting for a global retail, logistics, and supply-chain footprint.

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 53 scored entries below, 3 tied, 170 above on Ecological Harm.

Linked evidence
  • Walmart publishes sustainability reporting for a global retail, logistics, and supply-chain footprint. [10]
Policy Capture
?
Private-interest attempts to bend law, regulation, subsidies, taxes, enforcement, trade, labor, safety, competition, environmental, healthcare, housing, surveillance, civil-liberties, or consumer policy against workers, customers, citizens, affected communities, or ecological life. Public-interest advocacy is not penalized merely because it is lobbying. Range: -15 to 0.
-4

OpenLobby records WALMART INC. lobbying on healthcare and economic development with about $800K in spending across 21 filings; the reviewed filings document private institutional lobbying over public rules rather than a public-interest advocacy role.

Linked evidence
  • OpenLobby records WALMART INC. lobbying on healthcare and economic development with about $800K in spending across 21 filings; the reviewed filings document private institutional lobbying over public rules rather than a public-interest advocacy role. [13]
High-Carbon Products
?
Core products, services, financing, or supply chains that materially depend on fossil-fuel combustion, high-emissions transport, industrial animal agriculture, meat, dairy, or other unusually carbon-intensive activity. This is scored separately from general ecological harm so ordinary consumers can see carbon-intensive product exposure directly. Range: -10 to 0.
-2

The company sells mixed grocery, restaurant, or packaged-food products where meat, dairy, refrigerated logistics, or high-carbon ingredients are material but not necessarily the entire business model.

Linked evidence
  • Walmart has mixed food exposure high-carbon product exposure based on its listed business model and current profile description: A public big-box and grocery retailer with vast low-price reach, major labor and supplier effects, and shareholder-governed control. Walmart remains weak because of ecological harm, toxic or materially harmful products,… [14]
Toxic Products
?
Current sale of products whose ordinary use, exposure, ingredients, residues, packaging, or formulation creates toxic, addictive, or consumer-safety risk. Food products receive at least light scrutiny for artificial colors, artificial flavors, petro-derived additives, pesticide residues, contaminants, endocrine-disrupting packaging, and ultra-processed formulation. Ordinary adult nightlife or alcohol service is not penalized by itself without evidence of predatory marketing, youth targeting, addiction-extractive design, or unusual product-safety misconduct. Range: -5 to 0.
-2

Walmart currently operates mass retail and grocery channels that include pesticides, sugary drinks, chemical household products, and animal products; the product category creates ordinary…

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Column-spectrum position: 14 scored entries below, 9 tied, 203 above on Toxic Products.

Linked evidence
  • Walmart currently operates mass retail and grocery channels that include pesticides, sugary drinks, chemical household products, and animal products; the product category creates ordinary toxic, addictive, or consumer-safety exposure under the directory's toxic-products screen. [11]
Ideological Disavowal
?
Concealed ideology presented as neutrality, expertise, professional necessity, public-service administration, market inevitability, or non-ideological common sense while exercising power. Range: -3 to 0.
-1

Walmart's public framing is assessed as ideological-disavowal evidence because Walmart shows bounded neutrality theater: some contested choices are softened through expertise,…

Calibration notes

Comparative anchor: Ideological Disavowal 0 to -3 recalibration: 0 for explicit standpoint or no penalty-level neutrality theater; -1 for bounded softening of contested choices; -2 for strong neutrality theater by a powerful institution; -3 for major gatekeeping or coercive power presented as neutral, necessary, objective, or non-ideological.

Uncertainty
  • This recalibration uses public self-presentation and profile evidence; later review should add direct language-analysis evidence for high-impact institutions.
Linked evidence
  • Walmart's public framing is assessed as ideological-disavowal evidence because Walmart shows bounded neutrality theater: some contested choices are softened through expertise, public-interest, professional, market, safety, or institutional language, but the record does not show dominant concealment of standpoint. [12]

Bonus Credits

No bonus credits applied in this version.

Confidence Basis

Confidence Basis

Confidence is computed from the evidence trail and review state, not typed into the profile by hand.

High 83/100

14 verified linked claims 14 direct axis claims 0 disputed claims 14/14 components covered

This confidence label measures the source-backed evidence trail. AI-scaffolded scores remain tentative until human review.

Claim confidence 15/20

14 verified linked claims

Source quality 15/18

Best source per verified claim, weighted by institutional reliability

Direct axis-specific claims 14/18

14 direct claims across 14 active components

Dispute load 12/12

0 disputed claims on this entity

Recency 10/10

Newest accepted timestamp: May 13, 2026

Reviewer status 7/12

Human-reviewed components score higher than AI scaffolding

Component coverage 10/10

14/14 evidence-bearing components have direct support

Evidence State

Evidence State

Profile stateAI draft / human-pending
VerificationUnverified
ConfidenceHigh confidence (AI)
ThoroughnessPartial (AI)
Correction routeUse “Challenge this rating” for factual errors, missing counterevidence, source problems, or calculation mistakes.
Company responseCompany representatives can submit source-backed corrections; payment never changes scores or reviewer authority.

Claims and Sources

Claims are the evidence record. Each claim needs a source link, axis category, status, confidence level, and timestamp before it can support a score.

* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.
1Walmart publishes annual reports and proxies for a shareholder-governed public company.

Ownership Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

2Walmart reports workforce, hourly wage, and human-capital policies at very large retail scale.

Labor Sovereignty Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

3Walmart's annual report and proxy describe a shareholder-governed corporation employing about 2.1 million associates worldwide, so workers, suppliers, and customers remain subject to corporate rules they do not democratically set.

Governance Verified High confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

4Walmart's $681 billion fiscal-year revenue and global workforce scale show a mass retail model where low prices coexist with centralized shareholder control over labor, suppliers, and retail surplus.

Extraction Verified High confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

5Walmart reports a very large workforce and investments in wages, healthcare, and education, but those benefits remain corporate programs rather than worker-controlled protections for people excluded from or leaving the company.

Solidarity Unemployed Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

6Walmart's annual reporting emphasizes global associates, suppliers, business partners, and communities, making loss-bearing fidelity only partial because the business model's costs are distributed through a vast supply chain outside stakeholder control.

Loss Bearing Fidelity Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

7Walmart's scale and low-price retail reach provide real consumer value, but the same scale gives the company private gatekeeping power over suppliers, local retail markets, and household shopping access.

Market Conduct Verified High confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

8Walmart sells genuinely useful groceries, pharmacy items, and household goods, but product integrity is limited by mixed toxic-product exposure and a retail model optimized for scale rather than strong product stewardship.

Product Integrity Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

9Walmart's revenue, store, workforce, and supply-chain scale make it broadly useful but also weaken local accountability and magnify labor, supplier, ecological, and product-stewardship concerns.

Scale Integrity Verified High confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

10Walmart publishes sustainability reporting for a global retail, logistics, and supply-chain footprint.

Ecological Harm Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

11Walmart currently operates mass retail and grocery channels that include pesticides, sugary drinks, chemical household products, and animal products; the product category creates ordinary toxic, addictive, or consumer-safety exposure under the directory's toxic-products screen.

Toxic Products Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

12Walmart's public framing is assessed as ideological-disavowal evidence because Walmart shows bounded neutrality theater: some contested choices are softened through expertise, public-interest, professional, market, safety, or institutional language, but the record does not show dominant concealment of standpoint.

Ideological Disavowal Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

13OpenLobby records WALMART INC. lobbying on healthcare and economic development with about $800K in spending across 21 filings; the reviewed filings document private institutional lobbying over public rules rather than a public-interest advocacy role.

Policy Capture Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

14Walmart has mixed food exposure high-carbon product exposure based on its listed business model and current profile description: A public big-box and grocery retailer with vast low-price reach, major labor and supplier effects, and shareholder-governed control. Walmart remains weak because of ecological harm, toxic or materially harmful products,…

High Carbon Products Verified Medium confidence Human-reviewed

15Walmart receives the Private Government badge because it combines large-scale private rule-setting over customers, workers, users, members, or counterparties with OpenLobby-documented lobbying of about $800K on public policy issues.

Private Government Verified Medium confidence AI-generated / human-pending

AI scaffold

Alternatives

BQUALIFIED44 tentative score Ace Hardware retailer-owned hardware cooperative · same market BQUALIFIED43 tentative score Do it Best member-owned hardware cooperative · same market BQUALIFIED42 tentative score Dr. Bronner's private benefit corporation · same market BQUALIFIED47 tentative score John Lewis Partnership employee-owned retailer · United Kingdom BQUALIFIED45 tentative score Second Use Building Materials employee-owned building-material salvage business · Washington, Pacific Northwest

Competitors

BQUALIFIED44 tentative score Ace Hardware retailer-owned hardware cooperative · same market BQUALIFIED43 tentative score Do it Best member-owned hardware cooperative · same market BQUALIFIED42 tentative score Dr. Bronner's private benefit corporation · same market CPERFORMATIVE41 tentative score Patagonia private company · same market CPERFORMATIVE38 tentative score REI Co-op consumer cooperative · same market CPERFORMATIVE37 tentative score Taylor Guitars private instrument maker · same market DEXTRACTIVE34 tentative score Framework Computer private repairable-electronics company · same market DEXTRACTIVE34 tentative score Grove Collaborative public benefit household-products company · same market

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Audit Log

Recent public changes for this company or group. The full audit log is part of the Transparency record.

ai-scaffolding toxic-products-assessment

Added tentative AI-generated Toxic Products penalty -2 and directory value for current toxic, addictive, pesticide, livestock, chemical, or consumer-safety product exposure.

ai-scaffolding confidence-calibration

Rechecked evidence coverage and source quality during the evaluation-quality pass; confidence now reflects direct source coverage, complexity, and remaining uncertainty rather than score direction.

ai_scaffolding score

Published tentative AI-generated scaffolding score 14 for initial human review under gcd-rubric-v1.

View Full Audit Log