Culture and Inclusion

ABLE at Loblaw acts as a voice and support centre for hiring people with disabilities. ABLE monitors representation and accessibility in our business, celebrate the unique abilities of people with disabilities, and educates leaders on hiring and managing people with disabilities.

To improve inclusive experiences for our customers, we continued with two programs to provide a more accessible in-store experience:

• Leveraging loop system technology in more than 50 of our stores to provide a more inclusive experience for customers and colleagues using hearing devices. Loop systems use hearing aid technology to cut out background noise.

• Utilizing a booking service to allow customers with disabilities to pre-book an appointment to have dedicated assistance when shopping.

Embrace Your Roots is the multicultural and Indigenous colleague resource group. It celebrates the many cultural backgrounds that exist in our business and promotes the importance of having multiculturalism at all levels of our organization.

Go Further Women focuses on empowering women of all backgrounds to realize their full potential and grow their careers at Loblaw.

Our focus on new talent is enabling us to build a more gender diverse pipeline. In 2024, 42% of our interns and 60% of Loblaw Scholarship recipients identified as women. Plus, 44.4% of executive successors identified as women, as did 51.5% of Top Talent.

PROUD at Loblaw’s mandate is to create a positive space where colleagues of all genders and sexual orientations feel welcomed and can be their authentic selves to enable them to contribute fully.

We've implemented several initiatives to create a more inclusive space for colleagues and customers, including:

• Encouraging store colleagues to add pronouns to their uniform badges

• Expanding inclusive washroom signage across the store network

• Modifying business applications to support name changes for transitioning colleagues

Reconciliation and Inclusion of Indigenous Peoples 

We acknowledge and respect the unique histories, languages, cultures, and rights of Indigenous Peoples. We recognize that our operations are located on traditional territories across Canada, and we are committed to working with Indigenous Peoples and communities to establish and foster enduring collaboration.  

To focus our commitment, we have identified actions for which we feel we have the greatest opportunity to impact: Building allyship through education; Championing employment of Indigenous peoples; and driving the well-being and economic development of Indigenous peoples and communities. Highlights of this work include: 

• Deployed a training program for Indigenous inclusion and collaborated with our recruitment teams to develop strategies and remove barriers, aiming to close the gap and increase representation of Indigenous colleagues in our corporate workforce. 

• Continued the expansion of our store Land Acknowledgment program, where stores initiate and foster a relationship with their local Friendship Centre, and as a physical symbol of this relationship a land acknowledgment sign is placed at the store. We now have over 230 stores with Land Acknowledgment signs, symbolizing relationships 230+ that we have created.  

• In June 2024, we celebrated the opening of the organizations first Downie-Wenjack Legacy Space(Open in a new tab). 

• Launched National Indigenous History Month and Day of Truth & Reconciliation campaigns for both store and store support teams, featuring events, toolkits, resources, and speaking events with Bob Joseph, Maynard Johnny Jr. and more. 

• To support and celebrate the accomplishments of Indigenous women, we have been sponsors of the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business (CCIB) Indigenous Women in Leadership Award since 2021, and we continue to work closely to help build stronger representation of Indigenous business within our supplier network. 

• In recognition of Indigenous History month, Joe Fresh launched an orange shirt initiative(Open in a new tab) through The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund and the artists Born In The North. 

• President's Choice Children's Charity's Power Full Kids™ | Future Growers program demonstrates a commitment to truth and reconciliation by annually awarding a container farm to a Canadian school serving primarily Indigenous youth. This initiative, with roots in three successful partnerships since 2018, empowers students to grow fresh produce year-round for their school meal program while linking food production with cultural traditions and sustainable agriculture. 

• In 2024, Shoppers Foundation for Women’s Health extended its partnership with Moon Time Connections - Canada’s only national Indigenous-led period equity organization – with a $500,000 donation to support access to period products for Indigenous communities across Canada. 

• In February 2025, Shoppers Foundation for Women’s Health (SFWH) announced a $10M donation agreement with the Government of Manitoba in support of The Winnipeg Foundation’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2S+) Healing and Empowerment Fund. This fund supports activities that extend tangible, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed support to children, families, and communities of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse individuals. The donated funds will be used to provide application-based grants to support healing, learning and empowerment. 

Our commitment to Indigenous Reconciliation is rooted in understanding and acknowledging the past while working towards a future that respects Indigenous rights and embraces diversity. We believe in creating opportunities for dialogue, learning, and growth as we journey together towards reconciliation. However, we recognize that this is a continuous process requiring consistent effort over time. As such, we remain open to feedback from all stakeholders as we strive to improve upon these commitments.