Outreach to academia and students

The academic community and student groups have had a long-standing interest in the adidas Group’s CSR, ethical sourcing and labour/human rights programmes. During the course of 2007 the SEA department participated in the development of graduate study materials, provided information on CSR and labour practices for postgraduate dissertations and granted access to factories in El Salvador, China and Vietnam for academic research. The universities conducting field research included:

• Australian National University, Australia
• China University, Taiwan
• Dong A University, South Korea
• Hong Kong University, Hong Kong
• University of California Berkley, United States
• Harvard University, United States
• University of Michigan, United States
• University of Wisconsin, United States

Senior SEA managers also delivered guest lectures on environmental and labour-related topics to campuses in China, Hong Kong, the United States, Germany and Vietnam. Academics at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations engaged with SEA to elaborate on a unit of measure for worker representation, and our CEO Herbert Hainer, also spoke on the adidas Group’s social and environmental programme at the European Business School (EBS) in Germany.

In North America, SEA managers continued to work on transparency exercises with university licensors. This included access to factory audit records, engagement in addressing allegations of unfair practices in specific factories and regular briefings to labour licensing committees.

• business and
  report overview
• vision and
  governance
• engaging our
  stakeholders
• managing our
  supply chain
• protecting the
  environment
• working with
  the community
• our
  employees