Best Buy Quietly Dropped DEI Goals From Its 2024 Report

In a subtle change that appears to be missed from last year, Best Buy has removed key diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitments from its 2024 Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability (CRS) Report.

I compared Best Buy’s 2023 CR&S Report to its 2024 CR&S Report. The difference revealed that measurable DEI hiring goals, once central to Best Buy’s strategy, have been replaced with broad statements about fostering inclusion.

At a time when many companies have publicly ended DEI policies and others are sticking with it, it appears that Best Buy may be quietly backing away from some of its DEI-related goals from prior years. Here’s what you need to know.

See Also: Aldi USA Deletes Its DEI Web Page

What Changed In 2024?

The 2023 CRS Report explicitly outlined Best Buy’s commitment to hiring from underrepresented groups, career advancement initiatives, and community engagement programs. These commitments were numerical, measurable, and tied to specific actions.

Here’s a screenshot from the 2023 report.

Best Buy also shared progress toward the goals, like these:

“We’re proud to share the progress we’ve made toward our 2025 goals:

• In FY23, we filled 37% of new, salaried corporate positions with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color — specifically Black, Latino/a/x, Indigenous, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander) employees, exceeding our goal to fill one out of every three positions.”

Here’s a screenshot from the 2024 report.

In the 2024 report, goals are noticeably missing. In fact, these are the only two mentions of the word “goal” in the DEI section:

• “As part of our goal of remaining a best place to work, we are focused on creating a culture where people feel valued and can be their true, authentic selves.”
• “Ensuring employees are paid fairly is a goal across our pay processes.”

The measurable goals from 2023 are absent. Instead, the section on Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (ID&E)—which begins on page 35 of the 2024 report—focuses on four vague “outcomes”:

• Culture of belonging
• Employee engagement
• Retention
• Representation

Page 36 (the screenshot above) discusses progress on retention and engagement without specific figures. It also discusses retention with two turnover statistics, neither of which relate to the 2023 goals.

This shift in language represents a significant move away from clear accountability metrics toward broader corporate culture statements.

Best Buy’s Future With DEI

Best Buy has taken two public actions on the DEI-front in the past year:

1. July 2024: It removed specific goals from its 2024 Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability (CRS) Report and its 2024 Annual Report.
2. January 2025: It updated its DEI web page indicating it still publicly stands by the statements made there.

For now, Best Buy’s 2024 report signals a quiet but clear step away from measurable DEI accountability—an indication of how corporate diversity efforts may evolve in the years ahead.

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