Product safety at adidas

Greenpeace recently tested various products, including some adidas products. None of the tested products pose any health risk to consumers. All of the published results and concentrations fully meet all legal requirements. None of the implied test results published by Greenpeace suggest any deliberate use of these components in our materials. 

adidas clearly rejects Greenpeace’s attempt in making consumers believe that our products are unsafe. From our point of view, this is completely unfounded and causes unnecessary concerns.

To give you one example: The European guideline for NPE is 1,000 ppm (parts per million). The value that was found in the adidas World Cup ball brazuca is fifty times lower than this regulation. Therefore, brazuca - just like all other adidas products tested - is fulfilling all legal criteria. The result underlines our continued commitment to ensure a best practice approach in all of our products.

adiads is globally recognised as a leader in environmental sustainability. In fact, we have been ranked by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), with whom Greenpeace has partnered, as one of the four top performing brands in our industry in China.

Additional context

For adidas it is crucial to comply with legal requirements and widely recognised standards for product-oriented health and environmental protection. We regularly inform our material suppliers about new scientific findings and developments regarding legal requirements, demands from consumer groups or critical materials.

We work closely with our material suppliers and the chemical industry to eliminate and to reduce the discharge of chemicals in our sphere of influence as far as possible. We are also committed to promoting environmentally sound and technically feasible solutions in the industry. This is why adidas joined a group of brands that developed a joint roadmap towards zero discharge of hazardous chemicals (ZDHC) in the supply chain by 2020. Our commitment to the Joint Roadmap is rooted in our firm believe that the goal of ‘Zero Discharge’ demands collective action of the industry, regulators and other stakeholders. Furthermore the elimination of hazardous chemicals does need collaboration and partnership with our industry peers, but also a holistic and integrated approach including all actors in our industry. So far, adidas has fully met all milestones of the roadmap.