Nike managed to reduce its carbon emissions by nearly 3 percent across the whole value chain in its 2012-13 fiscal year from its fiscal 2010-2011 baseline, while its revenues grew by 26 percent over the same period. According to its newly-released FY12-13 Sustainable Business Performance Summary, the company also fulfilled its strategic aim to increase production while sourcing from fewer, better-performing contract factories, with a 14 percent reduction over the last two years, from 910 factories to 785.
Progress on its sustainability goals includes an advance on its CO2-reduction target of 20 percent per unit from 2011 levels through 2015, having reached a 13 percent reduction through the end of 2013. The company also surpassed its targets on water-efficiency goals with contract factories that manufacture footwear, with factories using 23 percent less water per unit in 2013 compared with 2011, against a goal of a 15 percent reduction through 2015.
The Oregon-based sporting goods giant also focused on the use of more sustainable materials through innovations such as ColorDry, which eliminates water and process chemicals from material dyeing, and Flyknit technology, which substantially reduces waste, as well as through multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Launch.
Nike is also committed to greener methods through an agreement with Bluesign Technologies to open up its chemical formulation database, enabling access to 30,000 environmentally-better materials for suppliers and contracted factories. Bluesign works along the supply chain to approve safe chemicals, processes, materials and products.
Nike began reporting its environmental and social performance in 2001. The latest report is its sixth and was informed by feedback from a panel of external reviewers, including representatives from non-governmental organizations, academics, business and consumer advocates. Nike's action toward sustainable innovation was recently examined in two separate case-studies by the Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business. The two studies, which can be accessed from the respective schools, trace Nike's journey to embed and scale sustainable innovation across the company and its contract supply chain as a part of the company's long-term growth.
Nike's sustainability report is available at http://www.nikeresponsibility.com. The site features a life-cycle assessment comparing three different footwear styles over a five-year period showing substantial reductions in energy, emissions, water, waste, and chemicals. Progress mainly resulted from changes in design, materials and manufacturing processes. The site also includes access to a searchable database of all contracted factories, complete with details of location and workforce.
