Environmental sustainability
Taking bold moves to reduce our impact on the planet
Our sustainability strategy
At CVS Health®, we know that the health of the environment impacts the people and communities we serve. So we’re putting in place innovative sustainability solutions that can help improve health equity and reduce the resources we consume and the waste we generate.
How we’re making an impact
We’re striving to reduce the use of plastic materials and ensure recyclability for all product packages used by our exclusive retail brands. In 2021, we joined forces with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and became the principal retail member of ReSource: Plastic.
We are also a founding member of the Beyond the Bag Initiative to address single-use plastic bags.
And we are leveraging digital solutions to reduce our paper usage — resulting in 82 percent of customers opting for digital receipts and thereby, eliminating nearly 500 million receipts in 2023.
While we’re not historically a large consumer of water, we recognize the close link between water usage and climate change. So we established policies and programs to govern our water usage and manage related risks across our businesses.
Additionally, we have plans in place to reduce the amount of waste generated across our enterprise. That includes liquidation, donation and recycling of unsalable products.
We’re actively seeking ways to minimize waste across our supply chain.
In our facilities and distribution centers, we’re working with suppliers to reduce unnecessary packaging materials.
And we’re installing charging stations to power electric transport refrigeration units (TRUs) at our distribution centers. This paves the way for other programs that reduce idle time and carbon emissions in our facilities.