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As a leading athletic footwear, apparel and equipment company, Nike, Inc. is dedicated to inspiring every athlete to reach peak performance. Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman saw endless possibilities for human potential embodied through sport, and his philosophy still guides the company’s mission today: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. This philosophy is reflected in the company’s sustainability efforts.

Nike is using the power of its brand, the energy and passion of its people, and the scale of its business to create meaningful change in the world. For example, through their commitment to innovation, design and collaboration, Nike’s use of certified organic cotton has grown from an initial purchase of 250,000 pounds (c. 114,000 kg) in 1997 to becoming the world’s third-largest user of organic cotton in 2010 with 15 million pounds (c. 7 million kg). As such, the company has contributed significantly to increasing the market for organic cotton.

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Nike’s apparel division begins an extensive study of cotton use. Cotton is one of two primary material choices for Nike apparel products and there is an increasing awareness of the environmental benefits to organic.

Nike Sustainable Cotton Milestones

1996

In collaboration with a yarn-spinning mill, Nike makes its first “spot” purchase—cotton that’s already been planted—of approximately 250,000 pounds of U.S. certified organically grown cotton.

1997

Nike supports a “pre-plant” commitment by spinning mills that supply cotton to contract factories, helping U.S. farmers forecast demand. Nike debuts apparel containing 3 percent certified organically grown cotton blended with 97 percent conventionally grown cotton, producing nearly 4 million men’s and kids’ T-shirts.

1998

Nike convenes a meeting with other leadership companies to explore the opportunities and barriers to developing a robust and sustainable global organic cotton industry, which led to the development of Organic Ex-change.

2001

The Nike Organics line debuts for women in the United States, featuring 100 percent certified organic cotton. Nike becomes a founding member of the Organic Exchange and an active member in the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Fiber Working Group.

2002

Nike expands its focus on lowering the environmental impact of cotton production and joins the Better Cotton Initiative.2008

Nike is on track with its blended organic program and uses c. 15 million pounds of organic cotton making them the third largest user in the world.2010

Nike sets new sustainable cotton target to source 100 percent sustainably grown cotton (Better Cotton or Organic) by 2020. 2011Nike is setting strategic plans for increasing their organic blending per-centage and continuing to offer100 percent certified organic cotton ap-parel products throughout their global apparel line.

2015

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LocationHeadquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, USA

Type of Business

Designer, marketer and distributor of authentic athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories for a wide variety of sports and fitness activities.

Turnover (FY 2012) USD $24.1 billion

Number of Employees More than 44,000 worldwide in FY12

Began selling organic cotton products

1998

OC Value Chain Partners Strategic cotton supply chains that work with third-party certifiers accredited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).

Sustainability Collection: A variety of 100 percent and blended organic cotton products are available across Nike’s global apparel product range.

Future Ambition Source 100 percent sustainably grown cotton (Better Cotton or Organic) by 2020

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In the Beginning

As Nike became aware of the environmental benefits of organic cotton, it undertook an extensive study of its cotton use in 1996, resulting in an innovative proposal to blend organic cotton into Nike brand apparel. Nike saw that this would make a considerable difference to the environment, as cotton constitutes the company’s second largest fiber use by volume.

The purchase of 250,000 pounds (c. 114,000 kg) of certified organic cotton in 1997 marked the debut of a blending program, which featured finished cotton fabric containing 3 percent organic fiber. Given Nike’s significant volume of cotton products and the limited amount of organic cotton available, the company

decided not to shift its lines to 100 percent organic cotton – an approach taken by other (smaller) brands at the time. While Nike’s blending approach ensured other retailers continued to have access to organic fiber, it also meant that Nike was able to work with existing supply chains of spinners and fabric producers. These valued partners have been critical to the success of the program.

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The Journey So Far INow in its fifteenth year, the blending program continues to combine small amounts of organic cotton (typically 5 or 10 percent) with conventional in nearly all cotton-based Nike brand apparel materials. The company’s Global Apparel Materials Team works with strategic cotton supply chains to set organic cotton use targets. Increasing the blend percentage over time is a strategy that enables Nike to escalate organic fiber purchases.

In 2002, Nike launched the Nike Organics women’s apparel collection, made of 100 percent organic cotton. The introduction of 100 percent organic cotton products initially created some challenges in Nike’s supply chain, including identifying suitable sources of fiber, redeveloping yarns and fabrics, and managing higher raw material costs. The company continues to expand the number of products made of 100 percent organic cotton across a wide range of apparel product categories. This allows Nike to communicate the benefits of sustainable material choices directly to a greater number of consumers through point-of-purchase information such as product labels, tags, and in-store signage.

While Nike remains committed to increasing its use of organic cotton, the company is also moving the remainder of their mainstream cotton toward the use of cotton grown to standards set by the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). The BCI establishes standards for the management of inputs such as pesticides, fertilizers and water, and it also seeks to improve livelihoods and stability for farmers. With the aim of creating a mass-market commodity, the BCI intends for

Better Cotton to be sold at the same market price as conventional cotton, making it more affordable for companies and consumers. Nike signed on to BCI’s Fast Track Program in 2011, with the commitment to source 100 percent more sustainable cotton (either Better Cotton or organic) by the end of FY2020.

Nike’s experience with organic cotton has also served as a model for reducing the environmental impact of other material choices available to Nike design teams. They applied what they learned from setting up the successful Nike Organic Cotton program to Nike’s recycled polyester and renewable materials conversion strategies. Blending a percentage of recycled or renewable content into materials continues to be one way in which Nike supports the use of sustainable materials. Again, working closely with suppliers to communicate material conversion goals, performance targets and timelines has been critical to successful implementation.

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Value Chain Partners

To accelerate adoption of more sustainable materials, Nike focuses on product design – the part of the value chain over which it has the most control. (See Advocacy & Leadership section for more details.)

Nike contracts with manufacturers of finished products, who source and purchase materials (based on Nike design specifications) directly from an array of independent materials suppliers. The company works closely with the supply chain partners who purchase the fiber, yarn and materials needed to produce organic cotton for Nike products, using a variety of strategies to help ensure that an adequate supply of fiber is available to meet its growth targets for organic cotton. Clear communication of program objectives, goals, forecasts and timelines is critical, and Nike takes advantage of expert sources of information, including

supplier input and industry resources like the Textile Exchange, to deliver a successful program.

The cotton in products tagged with the Nike organic message is certified organically grown, and the company knows that it is primarily sourced from the United States, India, Turkey and China from producers using third-party certifiers accredited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). These third parties certify that the cotton has been grown according to standard organic agricultural practices.

In 2011, Nike partnered with Textile Exchange to pilot an organic content verification and traceability protocol with three strategic organic cotton supply chains. The pilot will continue through 2013 and will inform next steps in taking organic traceability to scale across additional Nike supply chains.

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Making a Difference

Nike was the world’s third-largest user of organic cotton in 2010, according to Textile Exchange. The percentage of Nike brand cotton apparel that includes a minimum of 5 percent organic cotton has grown from 47 percent in FY04 to 90 percent in FY11. All told, the company used more than 7 million kg(estimated 15 million pounds) of organic cotton in FY11—equivalent to the amount used in approximately 15 million T-shirts and representing 10 percent of its total cotton use that year, up from 2 percent in FY04. In addition to contributing to the growth of the organic cotton market through its increased volumes over time (which in turn support organic cotton farmers), Nike is a strong, globally recognized consumer brand and influencing how materials are made continues to bring positive change to the global textile industry.

Nike is also a co-founding member of Textile Exchange, helping to establish the organization by working closely with other companies in all parts of the organic cotton value chain to understand and develop the organic cotton market and expand into the broader area of sustainable textiles. As consumer awareness about the benefits of organic agriculture increases, demand for organic cotton products also increases, and supply will continue to endeavor to meet it. Hundreds of companies are committed to making a positive step by using organic cotton, and the company hopes that, in the long run, they will have made a difference together.

PHOTOS: Nike organic cotton t-shirt with Great Britain and France motif

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Nike is engaged in many other sustainable material initiatives:

Recycled polyester

Recycled polyester textiles, which can be made from used beverage bottles, use less energy in the manufacturing process, extract fewer raw materials and produce less waste compared to virgin polyester fiber. In FY11, Nike doubled its use of recycled polyester in apparel compared to FY10, the equivalent of removing more than 280 million plastic bottles from the waste stream. The number of Nike brand garments containing at least some recycled polyester fiber grew from 3,000 in FY04 to 31.5 million in FY11.

Environmentally preferred rubber

In the late 1990s, Nike researched environmentally preferred rubber and developed formulations suitable for performance footwear. Nike now has two environmentally preferred rubber base formulations, used in more than 30 finished rubber compounds that meet a range of sport performance requirements. In FY11, 80 percent of Nike brand footwear designs used environmentally preferred rubber, up from 3 percent in 2004.

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Leather

Nike works to ensure that the leather they source is as sustainable as possible. In 2006, Nike collaborated with tanneries and other footwear brands and retailers to establish the Leather Working Group (LWG). The LWG developed an environmental assessment protocol that was launched in 2007 and updated in 2012. The protocol establishes standards for better environmental management of leather processing.

Synthetic leather

There are many qualities of synthetic leather, but all are made with a textile substrate coated with a polymer. Typically, the polymer coating process requires the use of solvents. Nike has been working for more than a decade with synthetic leather suppliers to reduce and eliminate the use of solvents in the manufacturing process or switch to more environmentally preferred solvents.

Nike Reuse-a-Shoe Program

Established in 1990, Nike’s recycling program for discarded athletic shoes remains an industry-leading program and a key aspect of the company’s long-term vision for closed-loop manufacturing. Nike has collected more than 28 million pairs of athletic shoes for recycling to date and has contributed to the installation of nearly 350 sports facilities, primarily in underserved communities. Nike Grind, the material derived from Reuse-a-Shoe collections and recycled footwear factory waste streams, has been used in a variety of engineered surface applications in more than 470,000 locations globally.

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Advocacy and Leadership Because Nike recognizes that decisions made during the design phase determine the majority of a product’s environmental impacts, the idea of Nike Considered began in 2006 and was broadened to the Nike Considered Design ethos in 2009 to apply across footwear, apparel and equipment and bring the Considered ethos to all Nike products. This design ethos—combined with systems for evaluating apparel and footwear that it calls the Nike Apparel and Footwear Sustainability Indexes—enables product-creation teams to easily compare materials and make informed, more sustainable choices when designing products.

These tools represent years of research and analysis. They consolidate information about the most significant environmental impacts from product manufacturing (waste, solvent use in footwear and garment finishing treatments in apparel) with data about the environmental impacts of materials (including chemistry, energy and greenhouse gas intensity, water and land use intensity, and physical waste) into a decision-making tool that teams can use to score their product designs in just minutes. The tool quantifies the value of environmentally preferred materials such as organic cotton for Nike design teams, and awards points to materials sourced through suppliers that are organic processing certified. Nike’s index tools have enabled product-design teams to focus on what matters most in the process of creating lower impact performance athletic products—material choices, waste reduction and low-impact manufacturing methods.

PHOTO: Nike “Cosidered Design” - Creating a custom and considered design for each nation.

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In 2011, Nike significantly upgraded the materials rating tool embedded in the Nike Apparel and Footwear Sustainability Indexes. The Nike Materials Sustainability Index (Nike MSI) balances three categories of metrics and scoring, drawing on publicly disclosed life cycle assessment studies as well as material- and supplier-specific information. Nike MSI gives suppliers visibility into the environmental impacts of specific materials while highlighting key areas of innovation and best practices that they can adopt to deliver materials with lower environmental impacts, as measured by Nike MSI. As such, Nike shows its suppliers the opportunities ahead in terms of material innovation and encourages them to increase their offer of these products. In June 2012, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition voted to adopt the core structure of Nike MSI for integration into its Apparel Higg Index, and, as such, this tool influences sustainability efforts across the footwear and apparel industry.

Telling the Story Nike communicates with suppliers and consumers through a variety of touch points, from hangtags and point of purchase information at the retail level to online venues. Key information hubs highlighting Nike’s sustainability efforts include nikebetterworld.com, nikeresponsibility.com and nikeinc.com.

Innovation is in Nike’s DNA, and the company is committed to applying it to serve the needs of the athlete and the planet at the same time. Nike is committed to enabling and inspiring a new generation to play sport and to creating superior athletic performance product with lower environmental impact. Launched in 2011, Nike Better World amplifies product stories that feature sustainable innovation and materials, including recycled polyester, and organic cotton.

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Where to Next?

Nike believes that sustainability is the world’s greatest innovation challenge. Although incremental improvements play an important role, on their own they will fall far short of achieving the progress that’s needed. The world needs new systems, new business models, new relationships and new ways of thinking. Sustainability requires transformation, and innovation lies at the heart of that process.

Nike’s Considered Design ethos—and the belief that broadly adopted design processes can drive systems change—has been a cornerstone of their sustainability strategy. Going forward, Nike believes its

next-generation indexes will accelerate progress in product and materials sustainability throughout its value chain—particularly Nike MSI, which will encourage material suppliers to become more sustainable themselves and to create more environmentally responsible materials. Nike’s vision is that through these efforts, material suppliers will become sustainable innovation partners in pushing new and better materials to scale.

Nike knows the opportunity is greater than ever for its sustainability strategy to drive business growth, build deeper consumer and community connections, and create positive social and environmental change.

Textile Exchange inspires and equips people to accelerate sustainable practices in the textile value chain. We focus on minimizing the harmful impacts and maximizing the positive effects of the global textile industry.

Our signature program focuses on organic cotton value chains; improving lives for farmers, stimulating markets, and supporting best practice.

Website: farmhub.textileexchange.org/

Copyright © 2012 Textile Exchange. All rights reserved.

For more information on hessnatur, please visit: www.nikebetterworld.com

www.nikeresponsibility.com/report/ www.nikeinc.com/pages/responsibility