Costco Wholesale - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Costco Wholesale is Medium Risk.

Costco is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. Costco occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	High Risk
Employment Protection	Medium Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	Lower Risk
Funding	Lower Risk
Political Actions	No Data

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Costco received a score of 25 on the 2025 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a political stakeholder group. The company recruits employees based on sexual identity issues. The company discriminates against vendors that do not promote divisive sex and gender policies, indicating it prioritizes sexual issues over merit (1)(2). Costco integrates ESG into its business practices. From its 2024 proxy report: “$93,333 of bonus eligibility [for the CEO] was determined by environmental and social objectives for achievement of quantitative performance metrics (including metrics concerning diversity, equity and inclusion, resource consumption, and other environmental-related areas)” (3)(4). However, Costco has not canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (5).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Costco’s donation program is specifically directed at nonprofits that focus on kids, education, or health and human services. Eligible organizations must also be in the same neighborhood as a Costco store. Costco does not make any donations outside of this, including to “religious organizations for religious purposes” (1). Costco likely uses Benevity as its charitable giving platform. Benevity vets charities according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate List, which includes mainstream libertarian, conservative, family, and religious advocacy organizations (2)(3)(4).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Costco operates a Supplier Inclusion Program. “Speciﬁcally, our goals around supplier inclusion are to: Work with qualiﬁed small and diverse suppliers in our communities, to provide introductions to do business with Costco [and to] Partner with community organizations to identify qualified small and diverse suppliers to support our business” (1). Costco protects its employees against viewpoint discrimination (2).