On Tuesday, Walmart introduced Upstream Facility Services, a new business bringing its in-house maintenance expertise to companies nationwide. Upstream currently focuses on HVAC, refrigeration, general maintenance, electrical, and plumbing trades.

Upstream is built for businesses operating across distributed, multi-location footprints, where uptime, consistency, and speed directly impact revenue. Constructed on the systems and scale that support thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations, its maintenance model combines urgent repairs, preventive maintenance, and predictive service.

With technicians positioned near many customer locations, the business is designed to respond quickly while helping customers reduce downtime, avoid repeat issues, and extend asset life. That national reach is backed by a dedicated training center where technicians build the skills needed to deliver reliable and consistent service across locations.

“We’ve spent years building one of the largest in-house facility service operations in the country,” said R.J. Zanes, Walmart Facility Services vice president. “Upstream takes that capability beyond our walls, combining national scale, skilled technicians, and real-time visibility to help businesses run with fewer disruptions.”

Clients have real-time visibility into services across locations, from job status to performance trends, enabling faster decisions, better planning, and more consistent execution at scale. These tools support scheduling, routing, and performance tracking.

Upstream is built for businesses managing complex facility operations, especially those operating across multiple locations. The goal is to simplify facility maintenance while improving uptime and reducing costs.

 Walmart said the key benefits of Upstream Facility Services include:

• Nationwide technician coverage with local proximity.
• Service delivered by Walmart-trained technicians.
• End-to-end maintenance: urgent, preventive and predictive.
• Consistent execution across locations and operations.
• Real-time visibility into service performance.
• Proactive approach to reduce downtime over time.

Tork, an Essity brand, and the Eagles Autism Foundation entered a joint initiative to transform several restrooms at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia in support of providing an inclusive hygiene experience for guests of all abilities. Upgraded restrooms will feature adult changing tables, higher urinal and stall dividers for enhanced privacy and comfort, warm lighting and soothing music to build a calming ambiance, and more enhanced accessibility features.

Lincoln Financial Field committed to providing inclusive hygiene for all guests when it upgraded its restroom infrastructure in 2023. The organizations will complete a series of restroom enhancements across the three restrooms located by the Eagles Sensory Room presented by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on the lower suites level of Lincoln Financial Field. The three upgraded restrooms will be completed and showcased to fans in May ahead of the annual Eagles Autism Challenge. 

The Eagles Autism Foundation offers resources at Lincoln Financial Field to provide a smoother stadium experience for individuals of all abilities. Starting with a “visual schedule,” guests can prepare for their experience by understanding what to expect and knowing how to access support. Guests can also visit Fan Services for sensory bags, take a break in the stadium’s sensory room, and now through this innovative partnership, experience a more inclusive hygiene experience.

The restroom upgrade is a direct result of collaboration and listening to those who understand the community’s needs, including gathering input from the Eagles Autism Foundation community and leveraging the expertise of the Tork Coalition for Inclusive Hygiene. The restroom upgrades also incorporated tips from the Inclusive Hygiene Playbook—a first-of-its-kind resource that provides research-backed tips for facility managers based on deep ethnographic research and over 50 years of Tork sustainable hygiene experience. Additionally, the Eagles Autism Foundation surveyed over 70 respondents in its community and found:

• Participation starts with comfort: Restrooms are integral to the venue experience. If fans don’t feel comfortable, they may opt out entirely.  One caregiver shared: “Families like mine want to go out and experience what neurotypical families get to do every day. By making restrooms more accessible, it makes it easier for us to participate too.” 
• Valued guests become loyal fans: The restroom experience impacts whether fans feel valued or undervalued, which informs loyalty and repeat visits. A respondent noted: “I think highly of facilities that have more accessible options for visitors because it shows me they care about the people that come to their venue.” 
• Belonging builds community: For many families, the ability to share in everyday experiences—without barriers—is everything.  

“These restroom upgrades at Lincoln Financial Field, paired with the existing sensory room, are exactly what best-in-class fan experience looks like,” said Uma Srivastava, KultureCity executive director. “We hope more organizations follow this lead, because when you design holistically for everyone, more people can show up, participate, and truly belong­—from attending events to working, dining, learning or traveling.”

In turn, Tork prioritized the following enhancements to create a more inclusive hygiene restroom experience where all fans feel welcome, safe and empowered to participate. 

• Odor control via installation of Tork Constant Air Freshener with malodor-eliminating technology. 
• Adult changing tables to serve caregivers of individuals with differing abilities, mobility challenges, or medical needs.
• Surface sanitizing to provide extra comfort and protection for users, with Everwipe® by Tork disinfectant wipes placed by adult changing tables.  
• Higher urinal and stall dividers for improved privacy and comfort. 
• Localized sound system dedicated to the three upgraded restrooms, centrally controlled from a sound panel inside the sensory room to address sensory sensitivities.
• Warm lighting to build a calming, comfortable ambiance. 

The U.S. Department of Labor launched a new suite of voluntary self-assessment tools to empower U.S. companies to strengthen their global supply chains, protect their brands, and defend American workers from unfair competition due to labor abuses overseas.

The voluntary self-assessment tools provide practical, user-friendly guidance to help companies evaluate labor practices, map supply-chain risks, and take concrete steps to ensure alignment with U.S. law banning imports made with forced labor.

The self-assessment tools launched today are: 

• LaborShield: A mobile app that features information on egregious labor violations in over 145 countries. 
• ImportWatch: A resource that brings together the department’s labor abuse research with U.S. import data from the U.S. Census Bureau to produce a red-flag list of all high-risk goods for U.S. importers.
• SourcingStrong: A tool to help U.S. businesses build strong labor due diligence systems to identify and manage risk in their supply chains.
• Supply Chain Traceability Portal: The portal provides visibility across supply chains and beyond the first tier to expose where exploitative labor hides.