Not so long ago, we heard about the issue of plant waste at home improvement giant Home Depot (HD). While some believe that this is not much of an issue at all—it is just plant matter, after all—others believe that this is a large-scale waste of resources that could be better served elsewhere. The problem seems to be ongoing, though, as new signs suggest little has been changed from the last time this came up. Investors are cautiously optimistic, and sent shares notching up fractionally in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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The objections to the practice began when a picture featuring a cart full of garden supply material ostensibly headed for a dumpster started making the rounds. Reaction was oddly outraged, as people believed the material should have been given away, or even planted somewhere else outright. Then employees started weighing in about simply following store policy and being required to dump the plants.
Plant vendors then followed suit, making it clear that disposal was pretty much the only option for anything less than the prettiest plants. “Plant vendor here. We are under INTENSE pressure from the company to not have anything in the store that isn’t in near perfect condition,” noted one respondent. Some efforts have been made to address this, like recycling plastic plant pots and composting some unsold plant material. But most concerned about this would like to see those practices enacted company-wide.
Black Lives Matter Insignia Out
Back when Black Lives Matter was a much more prevalent movement than it is today, its slogans and insignia were a lot more visible as well. But Home Depot moved to remove that paraphernalia from some locations, one in Minneapolis-St. Paul in particular. The matter went to a federal appeals court recently, and the court upheld the store’s response.
The three-judge panel handling the case declared that the BLM slogan was “…not a generic message for equal rights or employee protection.” Further, it did not come to a random location—Minneapolis-St. Paul was a focal point of racial issues following the death of George Floyd—at a normal time. Indeed, the panel found that the slogan actually “…threatened the security of the workplace,” and could therefore be banned.
Is Home Depot a Good Long-Term Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on HD stock based on 19 Buys and six Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 9.07% loss in its share price over the past year, the average HD price target of $446.43 per share implies 20.35% upside potential.
