8/4/2019 CAGP Letter to Adidas

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Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity

1250 Connecticut Avenue, NW | Suite 200 | Washington, DC 20006 | +1 (202) 261-6592

September 15, 2011

Mr. Herbert HainerChief Executive Officer

adidas Group

Adi-Dassler-Strasse 1Herzogenaurach, 91074Germany

Dear Mr. Hainer:

I write with disappointment concerning adidas Groups August 26 decision to accept the baseless

demands of Greenpeace Internationals Detox campaign. Your company recently stated, The

adidas Group has together with other brands been working tirelessly in recent weeks to bring theindustry together in a forum to develop a roadmap that will address the 'zero discharge' challenge

that Greenpeace has posed. The Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity finds this to be an

unfortunate development.

The Consumers Alliance supports efforts undertaken to achieve a cleaner environment. The

efforts of Greenpeace carried out in the name of conservation, however, are not always what they

seem. In fact, our Alliance believes that your company is a victim of considerable greenmail the blackmailing of multinational corporations by environmental activists. This is particularly

frustrating since adidas Group did not fight back and defend its products. And now is especially

not the time to capitulate to this environmental organizations smear tactics, especiallyconsidering the tepid economic climate globally.

For the sake of your customers budgets and the livelihoods of workers in developing nations, I

urge you to reverse course and reject Greenpeaces radical environmentalism, a myopic ideologythat restricts free trade, imposes hardship on workers and shackles consumers with higher prices

and fewer choices. In addition, adidas Groups acceptance of Greenpeaces ransom will

negatively affect many other stakeholders throughout your supply chain.

In fact, as the worlds second-largest sports apparel manufacturer, you and your colleagues know

best how to manage a global supply chainfrom cotton mills to dye houses and manufacturing

facilitiesnot Greenpeace. Why then are you yielding to its biased claims, especially concerningthe use of nonylphenol ethoxylates? Greenpeace is nothing more than a special interest pressure

group and has repeatedly shown not only its disregard for science, technology and developing

world forestry and agriculture, but also a willingness to treat myth as fact.

adidas Groups capitulation to Greenpeaces latest anti-trade and pro-poverty advocacy is

emblematic of a larger trend. Accordingly, I would like to remind you what Greenpeace co-

founder Dr. Patrick Moore has stated previously concerning his disassociation with the

8/4/2019 CAGP Letter to Adidas

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Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity

1250 Connecticut Avenue, NW | Suite 200 | Washington, DC 20006 | +1 (202) 261-6592

organization: [Greenpeace is] anti-corporatism, anti-capitalism, anti-industry, and [it] basically

learned to use green language in a way that really was cloaking an agenda that had more to do

with anti-globalization and anti-capitalism than it did anything to do with science or ecology.

While adidas formulates its promised action plan over the next seven weeks, I would also like to

remind you of the recent ill fate of the Gibson Guitar Corporation in Nashville, Tennessee.Gibson has time and again partnered with radical environmental organizations with the hope ofavoiding their wrath. Through partnerships with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the

Rainforest Alliance and others, Gibson accepted many of their biased and misguided principles.

And how were they rewarded? Not with acceptance or praise, but rather with raids by armed

agents of the U.S. federal government and increased loathing from other members of the greenmovement. The Consumers Alliance hopes that adidas Group ultimately does not make the same

mistake.

Again, I implore you to stand up for your customers and those whose jobs depend on the

manufacturing and trade that Greenpeace erroneously campaigns against. If not, an extremist

green campaign will be successful in dragging your iconic black Three Stripes into the red.

Thank you for your consideration.

Very truly yours,

Andrew LangerDirector

Consumers Alliance for Global Prosperity

Cc: Glenn Bennett, head of global operationsJan Runau, chief corporate communications officer

Katja Schreiber, senior corporate public relations manager

Erich Stamminger, chief executive officer, adidas brand