Policies

Respecting and promoting the fulfillment of human rights is rooted in our purpose that “through sport, we have the power to change lives”. Human rights are basic rights and freedoms for everyone based on dignity, fairness, equality, and respect. adidas respects human rights, among others, by implementing an ongoing due diligence process to identify, address, evaluate, and communicate the risks of involvement with adverse human rights impacts through our own operations, products, or services, or via our business relationships.

adidas believes all employees have the right to work in a safe, fair, and respectful environment that promotes equal opportunities and prohibits harassment and discrimination. Only by maintaining a positive, inclusive workplace can we all benefit from the full potential of our fellow employees’ capabilities, creativity, and talent. Towards that goal, we established the Anti-Harassment and Anti-Discrimination Policy. This Policy details how adidas prevents, detects, and responds to all forms of discrimination and harassment and applies to all employees worldwide. 

This code of conduct expresses our company values alongside other information, guidance and additional resources in order to allow understand how ethical and compliant decision-making is essential at adidas. It is applicable for all employees, managers, officers and Executive Board members of the company and its affiliates who are obligated to live up to the high expectations that we set ourselves in the code of conduct. They must also certify their compliance with our code and disclose any potential conflicts of interest or any other possible exception to compliance with the code.   

This Policy defines our understanding, position, and handling of compliance issues related to Bribery and Corruption, Gifts and Entertainment, Fraud and Theft, Antitrust and Competition Law, Conflicts of Interest and Non-Retaliation. 

This policy documents key privacy concepts, as well as core procedural components necessary to maintain a privacy management program. Furthermore, it prescribes roles and responsibilities necessary to operationalize privacy management in a multi-layered, international organization. The handling of external enquiries related to privacy is a cornerstone of privacy management, may they originate from regulators, supervisory authorities, or consumers. In 2020, we detected and responded to 37 privacy enquiries issued by administrative bodies and 205 complaints raised by consumers. 

adidas has established an Integrated Management System (IMS) Policy as direction for adidas business entities worldwide to manage their operations in a safe, healthy, energy-efficient and environmentally responsible manner. It documents the health & safety, environmental, and energy management system of adidas (HSEE), including all its brands, functions, sites and locations within the scope of our management system. 

This policy explains how we manage our stakeholder relationships. 

The Workplace Standards are contractually binding requirements applicable for our suppliers’ factories, covering health and safety, labor rights and environmental protection. The Standards draw from international law and the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, and follow the model code of conduct of the World Federation of Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI). We revised the Workplace Standards in 2001, 2006 and 2016 in consultation with labor rights groups. To explain how we expect our suppliers to live up to our Standards, we have produced a number of supporting guidelines that detail our expectations for fair, healthy, safe workplace conditions and environmentally sound factory operations.

A number of supporting guidelines make the Workplace Standards understandable and practical, provide additional guidance for our suppliers, and help us work together to find effective solutions to workplace problems. 

Our Guidelines on Employment Standards, Health and Safety Guidelines, and the Environmental Guidelines are available in several language versions. LINK

To make sure that not only the suppliers but also adidas employees and licensees, the ones that are involved in product sourcing, are aware of our Workplace Standards and additional guidelines, we’ve implemented Group-wide standard operating procedures. They ensure that all adidas businesses and licensees inspect, select and authorise suppliers in line with our Workplace Standards. Core policies and procedures that are part of adidas' policy manual include: 

• A Factory Approval Policy, which describes the procedures for getting authorisation from the Social and Environmental Affairs team for all production 
• The External Monitoring Policy, which outlines requirements for external monitors conducting factory assessments on behalf of adidas business entities and licensees 
• A Termination Guideline, which describes our approach to ethically terminate a relationship with a supplier 
• The Fair Factories Clearinghouse procedure, which describes the responsibilities for disclosing and maintaining data in the company's supply chain database. 

adidas has a long-standing policy of non-interference with the activities of HRDs, including those who actively campaign on issues that may be linked to our business operations. We expect our business partners to follow the same policy; they should not impinge on the lawful actions of an HRD, or on their freedom of expression, freedom of association or right to peaceful assembly.

We have a zero-tolerance stance on forced labor, human trafficking and slavery. This policy framework details how we manage to comply with our commitment. 

We are committed to eliminating the practice of migrant workers paying recruitment costs and fees to secure their employment.

We are committed to working with our business partners, across our global and multi-layered supply chain, to ensure that sourcing and purchasing decisions, and other supporting processes, do not impede or conflict with the fulfillment of the adidas Workplace Standards. 

adidas is committed to sustainable business practices, and we also apply these to the selection of the materials used in our products. adidas aims to source materials of animal origin in a humane, ethical, and sustainable manner concerning animal welfare and species conservation. 

The animal-derived materials used at adidas are leather, wool, and down. Other animal-derived materials are used very rarely. In such cases, responsibly sourced materials are preferred if available. We also invest in the development of innovative materials of non-animal origin as alternatives to animal-derived materials and use such alternatives once they are commercially available to meet the product performance our consumers expect.

In 1998, we adopted a comprehensive and detailed Restricted Substances Policy ("A-01 Requirements") for product materials, prohibiting the use of chemicals considered as harmful or toxic. Not only does the policy cover the strictest local requirements, it also includes best practice standards as recommended by consumer organizations. Restricted substances are those that cause harm or are suspected to cause harm to human health or the environment. Our approach is that suppliers must avoid the use of possible harmful substances to ensure that our products are environmentally safe. We review and update our standards and policies on restricted substances on an annual basis to ensure they follow scientific findings and that we are executing them to the highest standard.