As a global business, with many locations worldwide and a global supplier base, air travel is widely used by adidas Group employees. Since global travel is an important driver of our carbon emissions, this area was included into our Green Company target setting in 2009....
As a global business, with many locations worldwide and a global supplier base, air travel is widely used by adidas Group employees. Since global travel is an important driver of our carbon emissions, this area was included into our Green Company target setting in 2009. The defined goal is to reduce our emissions caused by business travel to 570 kg CO2 per employee.
To obtain a better understanding of the environmental footprint caused by air travelling, the air travel managed through our in-house travel agency has been regularly recorded since 2006.
For 2011, we changed the methodology for calculating related CO2e emissions. Instead of using emissions data directly calculated by our travel agency based on their internal methodology, we now used the DEFRA methodology (2011 Guidelines).
Due to this change in methodology, there now is a significant increase in CO2e emissions from business travel via air over the last few years. To have a better basis for comparison, we decided to recalculate the 2010 data according to the same methodology, to ensure a direct comparability. In 2011, data covered approximately 84% of our worldwide employees.
The total CO2e emissions of the adidas Group amounted to 52,035 tons in 2011, compared to 51,130 tons in 2010. While this is a slight increase, the picture changes when looking at the relative emissions: as the total number of employees increased by about 10% from 2010 to 2011, the CO2e emissions from business travel per employee decreased by almost 8% over the same period.

Comment: From 2010 on, data was calculated based on the DEFRA 2011 Guidelines. Due to this change in methodology, data cannot be directly compared to earlier years. Data includes the uplift factor as proposed by DEFRA, as well as direct and indirect GHG as outlined by the DEFRA methodology. A Radiative Forcing Index multiplier was not added separately. The air travel data is based on bookings made via our partner travel agency, which is not present in all countries where the adidas Group operates, and excludes bookings made via other channels. In 2011, data covered approximately 84% of our worldwide employees.