Adidas Group Creates Five-Year Environmental Plan

Adidas Group presented a five-year environmental strategy to revamp its approach to managing eco-friendly practices, which was published together with the brand’s Sustainability Report and sets a goal of “using 100% better cotton by 2018″ as part of its Better Cotton Initiative. The report indicates that Adidas will make every component of its business more efficient, from product design, development and sourcing to logistics, own sites and IT systems, ultimately improving the company’s environmental footprint.

Adidas currently makes snowboard googles and has done collaborations with Burton to create boots.

“Implementing environmental performance across our value chain is an important step to deliver sustainable operations over the long term,” said Herbert Hainer, Adidas Group CEO. “At the same time, our Environmental Strategy creates a sustainable platform for future performance improvements and innovations and is therefore essential for the success of our business.”

One of the milestones included in the Environmental Strategy is the company’s commitment to using 40% Better Cotton by 2015 and 100% by 2018. The Adidas Group co-founded the Better Cotton Initiative which aims to improve the environmental impact in the mainstream cotton industry. The primary focus is on reducing water consumption and pesticide use in cotton farming.

“By supporting the Better Cotton Initiative, we want to contribute to making global cotton production better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in and better for our consumers,” said Hainer. “Our goal is to use 100% Better Cotton in our products by 2018 and we are excited to work closely with the Better Cotton Initiative towards achieving this ambitious goal.”

Another flagship initiative evolving from the strategy is called “Green Company” and looks at the own sites of the Adidas Group. During 2010, the Group’s headquarters in Germany and five North American sites worked together to create a shared environmental management system, certified to ISO 14001. All certified locations are managed in accordance with the international management system standard which allows global target-setting and management at HQ as well as a standardized approach to day-to-day environmental management at site level.”

Story By Transworld Business