Adidas
RATING
SECTOR
Apparel/Accessories
WEBSITE
CONTACT
Adi-Dassler-Strasse 1
91074 Herzogenaurach
Germany
T: +49 (0) 9132 84-0
F: +49 (0) 9132 84-2241
E: corporate.press@adidas-group.com
STOCK EXCHANGE
LISTING
- Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI)
- FTSE4Good Index Series
- MSCI Global Sustainability, ESG and SRI Indices
- STOXX Global ESG Leaders Indices
- Ethibel Sustainability Indices (ESI)
- ECPI Indices
- Global 100 Index
- CDP Climate Change and Water Management (B Score)
- Green Supply Chain Corporate Information Transparency Index
- Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
- Leader in Children’s Rights Benchmark conducted by the Global Child Forum in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group.
- Know the Chain Benchmark
EMPLOYEES
59,533
CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER
AWARDS
– Stop Slavery Award
CONTENT SOURCE
FURTHER READING
Adidas
SECTIONS : Sustainability • Evaluation • Progress • Watch • Overview
Company Activity
Strategic Choices
The company’s business plan is built around three strategic choices that will enable them to focus even more on consumers:
- “Speed – How we deliver: Putting our consumers at the heart of everything we do and serving them in the best possible way means that we need to ensure that they always find fresh and desirable products where and when they want them. We will become the first true fast sports company.”
- “Cities – Where we deliver: Urbanization continues to be a global megatrend. Most of the global population lives in cities. Cities are shaping global trends and consumers’ perception, perspectives and buying decisions. We have identified six key cities in which we want to over-proportionally grow share of mind, the share of market and share of the trend: London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo.”
- “Open Source – How we create: This is all about collaboration and innovation. About learning and sharing. We are opening the doors of our brands inviting athletes, consumers and partners to co-create the future of the sport and sports culture with us.”
Creating the new acceleration plan
To foster Adidas’ brand momentum and accelerate sales and earnings growth, they introduced a number of initiatives that they will focus on in addition to the three strategic choices and their corporate culture – Portfolio, North America, Digital and ONE Adidas.
- “Portfolio: This is all about more focus and less complexity. They are constantly revisiting and sharpening the focus of their brand portfolio, fully concentrating on Adidas and Reebok and on their core competencies in footwear and apparel. This will allow us to reduce complexity and pursue their consumer in a more targeted and consequent way.”
- “Adidas North America: North America represents the biggest market in the sporting goods industry with a total share of approximately 40%. It is the single biggest growth opportunity for the Adidas brand. That is why they have made North America a strategic priority and started to significantly increase their investments into their US business – people, infrastructure, marketing and point-of-sale – in order to be more relevant and always visible to the consumer.”
- “Digital: The digital transformation is fundamentally changing the way their consumers behave and the way they work. Technology has enabled us to build more direct relationships with their consumers. With their relatively young workforce, they are in the unique position to continuously improve their digital capabilities – not only to interact with the consumer but also to become faster, better and more efficient in every part of the organization.”
- “ONE Adidas: They continuously strive for operational excellence. ONE Adidas encompasses a set of initiatives that will enable us to work smarter, more efficiently and in a more aligned way. Because they know that when they act as one global company instead of 20 smaller ones, they can only get better.”
Company Sustainable Activity
Adidas’ approach to sustainability involves taking responsibility for the entire life cycle of sport, using a two-fold approach to focus on both its products and people.
2020 product targets, according to the company:
Water:
- 20% water savings at strategic suppliers (baseline 2014)
- 35% water savings at apparel material suppliers (baseline 2014)
- 35% water savings per employee at own sites (baseline 2008)
- Further expand the use of waterless technologies for products
Materials & Processes:
- 20% waste reduction at strategic suppliers (baseline 2014)
- 50% waste diversion for owned operations to minimize landfill (baseline 2015)
- 75% paper reduction per employee at own sites (baseline 2008)
- Replacing conventional cotton, with the aim of achieving 100% sustainable cotton by 2018
- Rolling out a global product take-back program to all key cities and markets
Energy:
- 20% energy savings at strategic suppliers (baseline 2014)
- 3% absolute annual reduction in Scope 1 & 2 CO2 emissions (3) at own sites (baseline 2015)
- Further expansion of IMS to key sites globally at own operations
- LEED certification for new corporate construction key projects, such as the new offices at the company’s headquarters in Germany and new flagship stores.
- Reduce the environmental footprint of consumer events
2020 people targets, according to the company:
- In 2020, Adidas will produce 15 to 20 million pairs of shoes using recycled plastic waste from beaches and coastal regions, compared to more than eleven million pairs in 2019, five million in 2018, and one million in 2017.
- The first fully recyclable running shoe “Futurecraft Loop” has been in the test phase since 2019. The market launch is planned for 2021. adidas is also working on the development of bio-fabricated materials for sports apparel and presented first prototypes for tennis wear in 2019.
- From 2021 onwards, packaging used to transport products from the manufacturing countries to the store shelves will also be made from recycled materials. At the same time, Adidas is testing a recycling loop for transport packaging.
- By 2024, Adidas will only use recycled polyester in all Adidas products across the business, aided by the introduction of PRIMEBLUE and PRIMEGREEN performance fabrics where 100% of the polyester used is recycled.
- By 2030, as a signatory to the UN Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, Adidas has committed to reducing both its own and its suppliers’ greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2017 by 30%. By 2050 Adidas aims to achieve climate neutrality.”
Reduce waste and emissions- Adidas Formotion Technology
According to the company, “FORMOTION™ is a free-moving heel system that is decoupled from the sole which allows a pair of trainers to adapt to each individual’s running style to give a smoother running experience. The hot runner technology they use for some of their FORMOTION™ heel components has been widely used in other areas such as the automotive sector. The hot runners used in FORMOTION™ reduce waste by eliminating sprue units. The sprue is the passage through which melted plastic is injected. During the injection process, the melt hardens in the sprue, which means it needs to be removed from the finished product and thrown away. Eliminating sprues thanks to the use of hot runners has reduced material waste by up to 50%. A modular mould system allowing for the same mould base to be used on different products also reduces waste. And using lighter, stiffer materials means less material is used and also cuts down on carbon emissions because the finished product is lighter to transport.
Finally, for their current development, the amount of glue used has been reduced by using laser welding or a mechanical locking design, thereby reducing emissions. And where glue is used, the team has specified water-based glues as much as possible.”
Biosteel Fiber
The Adidas Futurecraft Biofabric prototype shoe features an upper made from 100% Biosteel® fiber, a nature-based and completely biodegradable high-performance fiber, developed by the German biotech company AMSilk. The material offers a unique combination of properties that are crucial in performance, such as being 15% lighter in weight than conventional synthetic fibers as well as having the potential to be the strongest fully natural material available.
Certificates
- ISO 14001
- ISO 50001
- ISO 45001
- LEED Gold – Brand Center Store Berlin, Office Shanghai, WoKi II Herzogenaurach, WoKi I Herzogenaurach
- LEED Silver – Multibrand Factory Outlet Store Otopeni (Bucharest)
Sustainable Development Goals
How company covers SDGs
N/A
Progress
Projects and Achievements according to the company:
- 99% of products are PFC free
- Organised “Run for the oceans: a global running event with over 2.2 million runners from all over the world in 2019”
- Plastic bags are removed from all Adidas stores worldwide
- Avoid more than 40 tons of single-use plastic items per year
- By 2021 packaging used to transport products will be made from recycled material.
- Parley for the oceans: “Over 15 million pairs of shoes will be produced with plastic waste collected from beaches and coastal regions this year”
- Infinite play: “pilot project in the U.K. to extend the useful life of a product.
- Consumers can send products back either to be resold or recycled”
- Better cotton: “100% of all cotton sourced globally is sustainable cotton.”
Over the last years, Adidas as a company has substantially contributed to the AFIRM Restricted Substances List that harmonises Restricted Substances Lists across the industry. In 2019, the list was further developed to include a corresponding test matrix that will help to establish the list as the globally accepted standard in the industry. Adidas also continued their participation in several major public stakeholder consultation processes initiated by the European Commission (e.g. European Chemicals Agency) and US state legislative initiatives to inform governmental entities on implications and opportunities of drafted legislation.
Adidas is a leader in sportswear manufacturing, an industry that is widely involved in a large amount of material and energy waste. Adidas, however, are working well to address the environmental impact of the company by including sustainability in each area of its business. Adidas’ continued inclusion in multiple sustainability indices is evidence of its continued commitment to sustainability, and Adidas continues to achieve its environmental targets each year in water use, energy, plastic, paper, materials, and GHG emissions. The company provides clear communication on their goals towards sustainability, but clear KPIs on progress towards the achievement of these goals are hard to find. Adidas does not hold primary sustainability recognitions; they achieve rating B.