Intro

In 1982, Walmart Foundation was set up to support the communities Walmart serves. It focuses on areas where it can create the most impact, combining the company’s strengths with its philanthropy. By drawing on Walmart’s scale and capabilities, the Foundation is able to deliver far more than funding alone, leading to greater social impact.

Walmart Foundation focuses on supporting programs that complement Walmart’s sustainability initiatives, examining supply chains to identify innovations or programs with the potential to create system-wide change.

Since 2023, Walmart Foundation has supported Earthworm’s work in the Riau Landscape, Indonesia, through grants that strengthen community-led forest protection and sustainable livelihoods. This collaboration enables smallholders to adopt regenerative practices, restore degraded land, and diversify incomes. 

The second phase of the project (2025–2028) builds on the lessons learned in Phase 1, enabling Earthworm to integrate supply chain work more effectively into landscape interventions. This includes improving traceability to the plantation, mapping risks, co-developing mill action plans, and embedding conservation priorities into sourcing decisions. By aligning efforts at the village, district, and supply chain levels, Walmart Foundation support is helping lay the foundation for a jurisdictional model of responsible sourcing, where forests are protected through community stewardship and private-sector accountability. This integration will be fully activated in 2026, and Walmart Foundation’s support is essential in giving Earthworm an early start on this work. It demonstrates the power of collective action when philanthropy, the private sector, and local communities collaborate to create sustainable landscapes.