Chemicals in products.
Over the past several years, there has been heightened awareness about potentially hazardous chemicals
in products. We are actively working to protect our consumers and employees through providing safer
alternatives or by eliminating potentially harmful chemicals.
In FY18, we released a Chemicals Management Statement, located at
Corporate.BestBuy.com/Sustainability, which outlines how we seek to reduce the use of chemicals,
phase out chemicals of concern and improve the general management of chemicals.
Our efforts focus on where we can make the greatest impact:
• Within our corporate, retail, service and distribution operations, we actively look for
opportunities to reduce the use of chemicals. Whenever possible, we work to transition to safer
alternatives, with a preference for EPA Safer Choice chemicals.
• For our private-label and direct import products, we outline supplier requirements regarding the
use of chemicals in products as well as those used in the manufacturing process. Best Buy
maintains a detailed Restricted Substance List (RSL), which specifies chemicals restricted based
upon regulations or known hazards, and chemicals suppliers are required to report usage to us.
o Each of our product specification documents include chemical requirements, and
increasingly rigorous assurances and testing of products are required based upon the
level of risk. Further, we partner with suppliers to identify opportunities to transition to
preferred chemicals.
o As part of our regular audit program, we monitor factories to assure adherence to our
RSL as well as our Supplier Code of Conduct, which specifies safe chemical procedures,
and we require improvements when we find gaps. Best Buy provides training to help
factories improve their chemical management processes, including the understanding of
risks and the importance of taking proper precautions.
o We also ensure 100 percent of our suppliers are audited to the International
Electrotechnical Commission Quality Assessment (IECQ) 080000, which is the standard
for assessing hazardous substances in electronics.
• We provide our vendor partners easy access to our chemical management documents and tools
via our partner portal, Partners.BestBuy.com. We recognize the interdependence of the
electronics supply chain and, by sharing these resources, we hope to support greater awareness
and alignment within the industry on voluntary actions to manage chemicals.
• Through our recycling program, we partner with the most qualified electronics and appliance
recyclers and hold them to the highest industry standards to ensure products and components
are reused, recycled, or disposed of properly at end of life and that chemical risks are managed
properly. Our recycling standards are publicly available on our corporate website.
Collaboration among stakeholders is critical to improving the complex issue of managing chemicals in the
electronics industry. To this end, we will continue to participate in chemical management work groups with
organizations such as the Responsible Business Alliance and the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council.