Founded on innovation, Nike has taken this mantra and applied it to their environmental practices. Always striving to be at the head of the pack, Nike has pushed environmental initiatives rather than dragging their heels. Some of their programs and accomplishments follow;
Through their Nike Grind program, they have collected over 25 million shoes and counting and have repurposed them into athletic playing surfaces.
See whats up with the Nike Grind at; www.nikereuseashoe.com/using-nike-grind
They have established their Considered Design department, which works towards their goal of a closed loop production cycle. ˜It all comes back to our vision of a closed-loop business “ where waste at different stages of our operations, from our contract factories to transportation and eventually our products at the end of their life, can be recycled “ as much of it as possible back into new Nike products.\’
Check out Considered Design at; http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/considered_design/index.html
Nike has developed an Environmental Index which measures the environmental impact of a product at each stage of its lifecycle and through many different lenses (water use, land use, energy use, waste products, etc.).
Check out their Environmental Index here; (http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/nikeenvironmentaldesigntool)
Perhaps most impressively, Nike has taken additional steps to amplify their environmental efforts by sharing their best practices and advancements with the rest of the industry. Nike has worked to make their supply chain information available to the rest of the industry and through collaboration with the nonprofit organization Creative Commons, they have created the GreenXChange which defines itself as "A platform for the sharing of patents, intellectual capital, and intellectual property, to spur innovation and increase sustainability. They have also worked to form the Sustainable Apparel Coalition which reaches beyond the snow/skate/surf industries and into all apparel companies.
Check out the GreenXChange at; http://greenxchange.cc/
Nike might not be the first company that you think of when you think of environmentalism, but their actions on this front deserve some big ups and given the size and influence of the company on the global level, their environmental initiatives may be some of the most impactful.
Our take: Nike is on it. Closing the production loop, working along their supply chain, sharing best practices with the rest of the industry, trimming waste, cutting out toxic chemicals, they are doing a lot of good work. If one can look past the whole ˜driver of globalization and all that goes along with that\’ then Nike really is an environmentally proactive company.