About our programme

About this review

Why we report

We report on our social and environmental performance every year because people want to know how we are doing. Increasingly, consumers are wondering if the company whose products they buy is a 'good' company or not. Pressure groups want to know if we are responding to their particular concerns. Financial analysts want to know if we would be a good investment.

This interest in how we do business is partly because we are made up of a collection of very visible brands. It means we are in the spotlight when ethical business issues are raised. That is a challenge but one we accept. Our response is to produce a review of how we have been moving forward in the last year, tackling the issues. We hope this review answers the questions people have.

What this review covers

The review describes the efforts we made in 2009 to address the key social and environmental challenges our business faces. We defined the issues relevant to include if they were significant concerns of our stakeholders that also had the potential to have an impact on our business.

We have included some of our stakeholders' voices in this year's review including:

  • A piece from Greenpeace on our response to deforestation of the Amazon rainforest caused by cattle farming.
  • A view from the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) on how we are helping to make the London Olympics be the first truly sustainable games.
  • Employees' stories: what it is like to conduct a factory audit, the approach taken in developing a green strategy, how they have implemented our Green Company Initiative or have found innovative solutions in product development.

More on the environment

The focus of our work in recent years has been on addressing people's concerns about workplace conditions at our suppliers' factories. In 2009, we responded to growing climate change and other environmental issues with a big push on our environmental programme. This included the launch of our Green Company Initiative and further innovation in green products. Those developments are reflected in an extended environmental section in this year's review.

Performance data and progress against targets

We have included a pdf of our performance data and our progress against our 2009 targets. This information can also be found on our corporate website.

The performance data covers all the brands in the adidas Group for the calendar year 2009, unless otherwise stated.

Listening to feedback

We are always keen to hear what readers think about our reports so we can improve them. Last year's report was reviewed in industry journals and we also gathered general feedback.

As well as that, students from across Asia reviewed our 2008 report as part of a conference on corporate social responsibility in Singapore, where our Head of Social and Environmental Affairs in Asia was invited to be a judge. The students' feedback centred on ways we could make our reports more relevant to young people, by making our online presence more exciting and engaging.

We have taken on board all this feedback in this year's review.