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Based on the overall Environmental Strategy 2015, we have developed an approach to managing our carbon emissions.

We aim to reduce our carbon footprint by at least 10% and will achieve this by driving energy and carbon efficiencies throughout the value chain, beginning with a ‘hot spot’ approach, targeting specific areas.

With a hierarchy of approaches we will follow to reach our goal:

1. Reducing energy consumption
2. Using energy with a lower carbon footprint
3. Offset carbon where appropriate in approved schemes.

Our Group has a comprehensive programme for own sites in place with targets to reduce carbon emissions by 30% in total. We also work with our suppliers, focusing on the top 50 energy consumers relative to the production output for the adidas Group.

As part of our commitment to transparent reporting about the adidas Group’s environmental impact and performance, we talk about our progress publicly through the Carbon Disclosure Project.

The adidas Group has reported its carbon emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project since 2007. Every year since 2008, we have increased the number of sites included in our reporting....

The adidas Group has reported its carbon emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project since 2007. Every year since 2008, we have increased the number of sites included in our reporting.

In 2011, we further improved our reporting substantially:

• The scope of the Green Company reporting was expanded to cover about 80% of all emissions within our own operations
• A new, web-based reporting tool was introduced
• Targets for energy savings were introduced for all our supply chain partners.

Most of our carbon emissions come from the manufacturing of our products. We use our influence with our suppliers to encourage them to address their environmental impacts and promote the use of environmental management systems (EMS), as we have at our own sites....

Most of our carbon emissions come from the manufacturing of our products. We use our influence with our suppliers to encourage them to address their environmental impacts and promote the use of environmental management systems (EMS), as we have at our own sites.

Using an EMS leads to a clear assessment of where impacts arise and focuses management attention on making continuous improvements in performance.

We have been working closely with our major suppliers, producing guidelines on how to conduct energy audits and training them about energy use and where potential savings can be made.

Each of our suppliers is aware that across our entire supply chain we want to see an overall 15% reduction in energy use by 2015. As more and more of our suppliers use the same data reporting tool we use for our own sites, we can analyse their data and establish their emissions baseline for 2010. Reviewing their 2011 performance against that baseline and working with our Sourcing colleagues, we can then establish annual savings targets for each individual supplier whose data we have.

When evaluating the carbon emissions associated with sourcing our products we need to look at how goods are transported from where they are made to where they are sold....

When evaluating the carbon emissions associated with sourcing our products we need to look at how goods are transported from where they are made to where they are sold.

Our policy and target is to minimise the impacts from transport, by working with carriers who operate sound environmental management systems and in particular minimising air freight shipments. To reduce the environmental impact of our transport operations, we typically ship most of our cargo by sea.

Over the past three years we have seen an increase in sea freight shipment and a reduction in air freight across all major product categories as a result of further enhancements in production and logistics planning with factories. However, due to the increased consumer demand for customisation as well as due to the short delivery times for special sports events like the FIFA World Cup™, we have to ship by air.

Due to the fact that the adidas Group works with third parties rather than its own transport fleet, our transport and logistics department has developed environmental requirements for carriers and forwarders. One of these requirements is that carriers and forwarders have environmental management systems in place that have successfully been certified in accordance with the ISO 14001 standard.

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.

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Calling Climate Change one of this century’s greatest challenges – and a major economic opportunity – on 10th April, 2013, 33 consumer brands, including the adidas Group, joined in urging federal policymakers to collaborate on a bold response to climate change by signing a “Climate Declaration” coordinated by Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), a project of Ceres.
 
To know more about the initiative, visit www.climatedeclaration.us.