Team talk
Sustainability review 2009

Phil Cumming, Corporate Sustainability Manager of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) explains the role of UK commercial partners such as adidas in helping London 2012 achieve its sustainability goals. All partners have to adopt or further develop practices based on four principles and LOCOG recognises that we are committed to meeting these responsibilities.

'The first sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games.' This was the vision and promise made to the IOC by the London 2012 Games bid in 2005. Sustainability underpins the entire London 2012 programme. By showing how changes in the way we build, live, play, work, do business and travel could help us to live happy and healthy lives, within the resources available to us, the 2012 Games will set an example for how sustainable events and urban planning take place around the world in future.

Everyone has an important role to play in delivering this vision, but London 2012 commercial partners like adidas have a particularly significant role to play given their products are a crucial and a very visible part of the Games.

To help London 2012 achieve its sustainability objectives for the Games, its commercial partners, suppliers and licensees are being challenged to adopt, or further develop, practices based on the following four principles:

• Responsible sourcing - ensuring that products and services are sourced and produced under a set of internationally acceptable environmental, social, and ethical guidelines and standards.
• Use of secondary materials - maximising the use of materials with reused and recycled content, minimising packaging and designing products that can either be reused or recycled.
• Minimising embodied impacts¹ - maximising resource and energy efficiency in the manufacturing and supply process in order to minimise environmental impacts.
• Healthy materials - ensuring that appropriate substances and materials are used in order to protect human health and the environment.

These principles are reflected in LOCOG's Sustainable Sourcing Code and all commercial partners are contractually bound to abide by its policies and requirements. This includes disclosing to LOCOG the locations of factories used to produce London 2012 products. It also means registering those factory premises on the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex), which allows companies to share ethical performance data with each other.

As a UK commercial partner and licensee of LOCOG, adidas is committed to supporting LOCOG to achieve its sustainability goals and has also committed to providing products with sustainable content for the Games. All adidas products supplied to the Games including up to 70,000 workforce uniforms plus licensed London 2012 products will have some sustainable content, drawing from approved materials under its Better Place programme.

''adidas has worked extremely hard to demonstrate that they have high supply chain standards in place, including labour and workplace standards. adidas agreed to challenging key performance indicators for suppliers and sewing subcontractors selected to manufacture London 2012 products. In fact through its association with London 2012, adidas is taking every opportunity to further its sustainability credentials. If London 2012 is the catalyst for it to become recognised as the most sustainable sportswear provider globally, then this is yet another example of where we have used the power of the Games to inspire change.''

¹ Embodied impacts are all the impacts inherent in making and distributing a product up to its point of use. These include the energy and water used to grow or extract the raw materials needed to make the product, and the waste and emissions from its manufacture and distribution.

In 2009 we set out the steps we need to take in the run-up to the London Olympics so we comply with the four principles of the LOCOG code, beginning in 2010 with the launch of the LOCOG products.

Responsible sourcing
Ensuring that products and services are sourced and produced under a set of internationally acceptable environmental, social, and ethical guidelines and standards.
All direct suppliers and sewing subcontractors selected to manufacture LOCOG licensed product:	2010	2011	2012
Have been clearly briefed on their obligations as a supplier for LOCOG licensed products
Are required to meet the adidas Group Workplace Standards
Are fully registered with the Sedex system (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange)
Are subject to regular labour, health and safety compliance inspections by adidas Group staff
Meet a defined Key Performance Indicator (KPI) which rates factories' compliance performance
Have a management plan in place that details the factory's compliance programme and future targets

Use of secondary materials
Maximising the use of materials with reused and recycled content, minimising packaging and designing products that can either be reused or recycled.
	2010	2011	2012
All adidas on-field and licensed Olympic products will contain environmentally-friendly materials, i.e. they will be drawn from the list of materials which have undergone an in-depth environmental assessment. Preferred materials are organic, recycled and recyclable materials.
In the years leading up to the Games, adidas will use materials that have had positive environmental assessments in an increasing number of products.
Continuous efforts are being made to both reduce and improve the environmental impact of packaging leading up to the London Games. As part of this effort, all shoe boxes for London 2012 will use 100% recycled content, soy-based inks and no glue. All shipping cartons to be made of predominantly recycled content. We are exploring various possible ways to ship multiple products in single packaging safely. We are also investigating viable environmentally-friendly alternatives to the adidas garment shipping bag.

Minimising embodied impacts
Maximising resource and energy efficiency in the manufacturing and supply process in order to minimise environmental impacts.
	2010	2011	2012
All direct suppliers selected to manufacture adidas-branded LOCOG licensed products and their major materials suppliers to undergo in-depth environmental assessments of their sites. Assessments are used to develop individual factory improvement programmes. Factories' progress will be tracked regularly.
adidas will endeavour to reduce the embodied impact of its products by choosing materials and patterns carefully.

Healthy materials
Ensuring that appropriate substances and materials are used in order to protect human health and the environment.
	2010	2011	2012
LOCOG licensed products to comply with the adidas Group restricted substances list and be in compliance with standards listed in the LOCOG Sourcing Code.

Find out more about how we consider the environment when we make our products