The adidas Group has a code of conduct which is called the ‘Workplace Standards’.

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The 'Workplace Standards' are a set of labour, health, safety, and environmental principles designed as tools to help the adidas Group choose supply chain partners, monitor their performance and identify problems. The standards are derived from international legal precedence established by the ILO, United Nations and other regulatory agencies. The Standards assist us in selecting and retaining business partners who follow work place standards and business practices aligned with our policies and values. As guiding principles, they help identify potential problems so that we can work with business partners to address issues of concern as they arise. Business partners must develop and implement action plans for continuous improvement in factory working conditions. Progress against action plans will be monitored by business partners themselves, our internal monitoring team and external independent monitors.

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SEA is a department of the adidas Group responsible for producing and developing sustainability policies and initiatives, and promoting social and environmental awareness throughout the company and its supply chain. The key functions of the department are carried out by the SEA team which is headed by the Global Director who reports directly to the Group’s Legal Counsel. The primary focus of the team is to work with suppliers to secure compliance with the 'Workplace Standards'. The SEA team which is organised into three regional teams covering Asia, the Americas and Europe, is a diverse group of individuals with a variety of educational backgrounds and professional experience, including law, engineering, finance and human resource management. Whenever possible, our field auditors come from the communities in which they are working, and have first-hand knowledge of the local language and culture. The SEA team collaborates closely with Global Operations, which is responsible for the development and sourcing of products from our suppliers. At times SEA also serves as an adviser to other units in the company, including Marketing, Product Development, Human Resources, Facility Management, Legal, Investor Relations and Licensing.

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Overall we rely on about 840 factories around the world. The group itself owns four factories, in Germany, the United States, China and Japan. Some 60 percent of our suppliers are based in Asia. Of the remaining factories, 20 percent are based in the Americas and 20 percent in Europe. For more detailed information please refer to the Sustainability section of this website.

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Since 2001 the adidas Group annually publishes a Social and Environmental Report which sets out goals, strategy and actions in improving working conditions in our suppliers’ factories and lessening our environmental impact. All reports are available here.

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Our stakeholders are the organisations, groups and individuals whom we affect and who affect us. They are a diverse group, including employees, suppliers, workers, consumers, investors, customers and non-governmental organisations.

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Yes. In 2002 we began formal stakeholder consultation meetings (‘dialogues’) to canvass the views of our key stakeholders. These dialogues supplement the many individual points of contact, meetings and enquiries that we have throughout the year.

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