About this report
This report describes the social and environmental performance of the adidas Group during 2007. It is the first report containing Group-wide performance data since Reebok became part of the adidas Group on 31 January 2006.
The report sets out our goals, strategy and actions in improving working conditions in our suppliers' factories, in reducing our environmental impact and managing our wider social responsibilities as a multinational company. It refers back to the objectives and targets given in last year's Question and Answer brochure, and assesses our progress in meeting them. It highlights social and environmental issues identified as significant by our stakeholders and describes targets for the next reporting period.
The report has been released at the same time as the annual financial report to give stakeholders a complete picture of our business.
We have tried to avoid duplicating text, so in some instances the reader is directed to web pages and adidas Group reports for more information.
How we have chosen what to report
Determining materiality
Actively engaging with various stakeholder groups, whether they are shareholders, consumers, customers, suppliers, workers or our employees, helps us to understand their concerns and how best to respond to their needs.
We have several ways we engage with stakeholders. These range from one-to-one meetings with SRI analysts to large meetings with workers in our supply chain. All of these engagements inform where we focus our energies in our work and what we choose to address in our report. See the Ways we engage pages.
Once again, we have referred to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines for a steer on what to include in our report. For more on our use of the GRI, see the GRI Index.
We also refer to our mission, our values and our business strategy to guide us in identifying material issues. The adidas Group strives to be a global leader in the sporting goods industry. Leadership is not only about results, it is about how success is achieved. We know that we can have an influence on our large supply chain and the workplace conditions of hundreds of thousands of workers. These are all considerations in our assessment of what is material to report.
Prioritising topics in the report
In this year's report we continue to provide in-depth information about our social and environmental programme. Our focus continues to be our global supply chain where we seek to ensure fair, healthy and environmentally sound conditions for the workers who make our products.
This year we have expanded our coverage of our global environmental programmes and initiatives, which we implement both within the adidas Group and the supply chain. This is in response to an increased stakeholder interest in these issues in 2007, particularly climate change.
We also provide a comprehensive description of how we partner and engage with other organisations to drive social and environmental improvements in countries where we and our business partners operate.
The report includes information covering all brands and divisions of the adidas Group, as well as key facts about our supply chain. In 2007, we have begun to cover more of our indirect supply chain. We have made it clear in the report where information relates to the Group's entities or our suppliers.
Who we expect to use the report
All our stakeholders may have an interest in our reporting, but some more than others. We have this year produced a review which sets our performance in a broader context. This review may be of particular interest to our employees and customers.
This online report we expect to be of most interest to people in government, SRI analysts, special interest groups and other opinion formers.
Verification
We recognise that some stakeholders want companies to ensure that the content and data disclosed in sustainability reports is independently verified. While we strive to continuously improve our reporting systems for supplier monitoring data, we feel that much of this data, in particular, data on labour conditions, is not always verifiable in a standardised way. Therefore, at this stage report verification would not add value. We do, however, believe that independent verification of workplace conditions and of the processes and monitoring approaches we adopt in our compliance programme is important. For this reason the report does contain information that is subjected to an annual review by the Fair Labor Association. We also refer to data verified when supplier factories or our own facilities were certified to ISO, EMAS and OHSAS standards.