Better Health for All

Petco's core business, through its foundation Petco Love, demonstrates a strong commitment to pet health and wellness. The company's entire business is devoted to health improvement, with significant investments in veterinary care, cancer treatment, and adoption services. Petco Love has invested $21 million in pet cancer research and treatment since 2010, and $421 million in adoption and other lifesaving efforts since 1999, helping over 6.5 million animals.

The company operates over 100 in-store veterinary hospitals. Petco Love has distributed 3 million free pet vaccines through its "Vaccinated and Loved" campaign and provided $1.5 million in grants to over 170 low-cost veterinary care providers, including Emancipet. These initiatives directly address price accessibility and reach vulnerable pet-owning populations in low-income communities across multiple cities, providing low-cost veterinary care and reducing the financial burden of treatment. The focus on vaccinations and early cancer detection highlights an emphasis on preventative health.

Fair Pay & Worker Respect

Petco's CEO to median employee pay ratio is 536:1, with CEO Joel Anderson's total compensation at $18,970,688 and the median employee earning $35,424.

Employee engagement, based on 6,779 Glassdoor reviews, shows an overall rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars. Additionally, 40% of employees would recommend working at Petco, and 29% have a positive business outlook.

Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing

Petco conducts unannounced onsite audits at least annually for all companion animal and aquatic life vendors, and annual Social Compliance audits are additionally required for factories outside the United States.

All suppliers are required to agree to Petco's Supplier Code of Conduct, which sets out expectations for ethical conduct, human rights, and other areas, with violations potentially leading to business termination. In fiscal year 2020, Petco spent $86.4 million with suppliers from under-represented groups, including women, minority, and veteran-owned businesses.

Honest & Fair Business

Petco's S&P Global ESG Score is 32, indicating below-average transparency.

The company has a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and an Anti-Corruption Policy, both effective January 13, 2021. The Anti-Corruption Policy is FCPA-compliant, prohibits bribery, and requires pre-approval for gifts, hospitality, and travel over $200 to government officials. However, the articles do not provide details on training frequency or effectiveness metrics for this policy. Petco operates a 24/7 anonymous whistleblower hotline, answered by a third party, and explicitly prohibits retaliation against those who report concerns in good faith. A third-party consulting firm supported a 2020 materiality assessment, and the Anti-Corruption Policy emphasizes due diligence on third parties, including background checks and integrity assessments, particularly for non-U.S. third parties interacting with government officials.

Kind to Animals

Petco states it conducts no animal testing of its own products.

The company stopped selling shock collars in 2020 and launched a petition to regulate their sale, being the first major pet retailer to do so.

Planet-Friendly Business

Petco's national support center in San Diego produces electricity annually through solar panels, and this facility achieves an 86% energy offset.

However, no company-wide percentage of renewable energy consumption is provided. The company has 98% of its Pet Care Centers equipped with energy management systems, but no facilities are explicitly stated to have green building certifications like LEED or BREEAM. Petco has a strong compliance record, with no environmental compliance violations mentioned across the provided articles. The company states that its FY24 TCFD report is available for download, indicating partial alignment with TCFD recommendations.

Safe & Smart Tech

Petco experienced multiple major security failures in 2025, including a breach where millions of Vetco veterinary files were accessible without login, exposing sensitive medical and personal data.

This was identified as the third major security failure for Petco in 2025. Other breaches in 2025 exposed Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, bank account details, and credit card information. These incidents led to disclosures to multiple state attorneys general, including California, which mandates disclosure for incidents affecting 500 or more residents, and Montana, where at least 3 customers were affected. The Vetco portal had an insecure direct object reference (IDOR) vulnerability, and customer files were accessible online due to misconfigured app settings, suggesting a lack of privacy by design and inadequate security testing. No login was required to access Vetco files. Petco offers affected customers free credit and identity monitoring services and has implemented additional security measures and technical controls. The company conducts annual privacy training for all employees, with specialized training for certain teams. Petco also conducts Privacy Impact Assessments for new technologies and aims to limit data collection and retention to necessary purposes. Petco pledged not to use facial recognition technology to personally identify guests in retail stores, but does use AI facial recognition to reunite lost pets, which has helped reunite over 170,000 lost pets.

Zero Waste & Sustainable Products

Petco eliminated more than 3 million single-use plastic bags within its owned brand supply chain.

The company also implemented a national 10-cent bag fee to encourage shoppers to reduce single-use plastic consumption. Petco launched a national trade-in and recycling event for dog collars, leashes, and harnesses at over 1,500 pet care centers across the U.S., Mexico, and Puerto Rico, partnering with TerraCycle. A pilot program in approximately 40 stores collects plastic waste, and the So Phresh cat litter program allows customers to return and refill plastic buckets. Petco piloted a recycling program for LDPE plastic, diverting over four tons in six months, which has since been rolled out nationwide with an expected annual diversion of nearly 150 tons. The company achieved approximately a 24% increase in total waste reduction compared to 2022 through community clean-up events, product reallocation, and donation efforts. Petco commits to increasing its assortment of sustainable products to 50% by the end of 2025. Waste audits are conducted annually for all major facilities, and newly released audited data for 2023 is available for PET and LBP recycling efforts in South Africa.