We have limited control over the direct environmental impacts of the manufacturing process and how our suppliers act. The best way to influence the environmental impacts at our suppliers’ factories is to encourage the introduction of environmental management systems, and we have made implementing such a system mandatory for all our core suppliers. Achieving certification to a management system requires factory managers to plan, manage and review their own environmental performance.
In 2008, 20 athletic footwear suppliers were certified in accordance with the international environmental management standard ISO 14001 and the workplace health and safety management standard OHSAS 18001. These suppliers produced around 73% of the adidas Group’s global athletic footwear sourcing volume.
Country
No. of FW
suppliers
ISO
14001
OHSAS
18001
2008
2007
2008
2007
2008
2007
Argentina
1
2
-
-
-
-
Brazil
2
3
-
-
-
-
China
11
12
9
12
9
12
Germany
1
1
1
1
1
1
India
1
1
-
-
-
-
Indonesia
8
6
4
3
4
3
Italy
1
1
-
-
-
-
Korea
-
1
-
1
-
-
Philippines
1
-
-
-
-
-
Thailand
1
1
-
-
-
-
Vietnam
11
7
6
5
6
4
Total
38
35
20
22
20
20
1 Excluding factories from the Rockport business segment and licensee factories.
VOCs - volatile organic compounds - are found in solvents used in the manufacturing process. They can cause breathing difficulties and other health complaints. Our target is an average VOC emission of 20 grams/pair of shoes. The company's footwear suppliers have reduced VOC emissions from 130 grams/pair in 1999 to 21.1 grams/pair in 2008, which includes nearly all adidas Group athletic footwear factories.
The fuel used to transport goods to markets creates carbon dioxide emissions, a major contributor to climate change. The adidas Group works each year to reduce the environmental impact of transporting its products around the world. Our policy 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.
Compared to 2007, we saw 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.
Freight type
2008
2007
2006
2005
Apparel
Truck
17%
18%
21%
22%
Sea freight
77%
74%
72%
73%
Air freight
6%
7%
6%
4%
Sea and air freight
1%
1%
1%
1%
Hardware²
Truck
2%
3%
3%
4%
Sea freight
96%
94%
95%
95%
Air freight
2%
3%
2%
1%
Sea and air freight
0%
0%
0%
0%
Footwear
Truck
2%
8%
2%
3%
Sea freight
96%
89%
97%
96%
Air freight
2%
3%
1%
1%
Sea and air freight
0%
0%
0%
0%
1 Figures expressed as a percentage of the total number of products transported. 2 Accessories and gear.
In 2004 a detailed set of indicators has been introduced, mainly in our athletic footwear suppliers' factories, to measure, track and analyse the environmental impact of footwear operations. These metrics were established to enable the adidas Group to calculate the average consumption of key resources per pair of sports shoes produced by its key footwear suppliers in Asia. Suppliers covered by this system account for more than 95% of adidas athletic footwear production.
While the ongoing review and feedback process improved the general quality of the data we still noticed a lack of ownership of data management in daily factory operations. To further improve the process of internalisation, new forms of incentives for factories will be piloted and field-tested that are going to replace the previous data recording scheme from 2009 onwards. One of the incentives is to develop approaches that clearly showcase the significant saving potentials that can be identified through the management of resources and costs by using mature data management systems.
Average resource consumption/
pair of sports shoes
