Category Archives: Sustainability Aspects

Rethinking footwear – The Element Soul running shoe

Stephan SchmidtMay 10, 2013 9:41 amSustainability Aspects

Normally, when creating a shoe, product creation teams take inspiration and general guidance from previous collections, while meeting specific current season needs. This time, we did it differently.

With the running design team, we started from the ground up and asked ourselves what exactly must be included in a shoe to make it functional and meet the athlete’s performance needs. Our approach was clear: think minimal. Include only those elements that are essential.

This is how this season’s Element Soul running shoe came to life.

Marking a new milestone in the management of our supply chain – the SMS worker hotline project

Adelina SimanjuntakMay 6, 2013 8:57 amSustainability Aspects

Everyone would agree with me that good communication is key to a satisfactory work environment; with effective communication, many problems can be identified and solved before they escalate.

I have spent a total of 15 years working in the compliance area, 8 of which with the adidas Group. Based on my personal experience, and after hundreds of factory visits and assessments, I can say that one of the biggest challenges for our suppliers is to be able to ensure effective communication with all their workers.

Did you know that the adidas Group has a sustainability venture capital fund?

Elizabeth TurnbullApril 30, 2013 3:30 pmSustainability Aspects

If you are familiar with facility management, you may know that facilities have finite annual budgets, and demand for capital predictably exceeds supply. Some projects like lighting controls may deliver carbon & financial savings; however, quantifying these savings requires time and specialized training, two equally scarce resources. Other projects, like replacing carpets, don’t deliver a return, but may still feel quite urgent to a facility manager. Without a trusted advisor to calculate and validate their economic and environmental benefits, energy-conserving lighting controls are stuck competing for the same funds as carpets.

We experienced similar issues at the adidas Group and set up a dedicated team to look into it. After months of calculations and visits to our facilities, we established the company’s greenENERGY Fund, our creative response to this universal corporate problem.

Challenging ourselves – The future of sustainable footwear

Alexis OlansFebruary 25, 2013 4:51 pmSustainability Aspects

Have you ever noticed a hangtag in a store telling you that ‘this product is more sustainable’? Have you wondered what that meant? You’re not alone: 75% of young consumers today say they want to know more about a product’s environmental impact, and 65% wish that more companies were putting even more sustainable products on the shelf (Source: BCG Global Green Consumer Survey, 2008) – and so do we at adidas. Here are some insights how we plan to achieve these goals.

A short introduction – my name is Alexis Olans, and I head up the adidas sustainable product program, adidas Better Place. Since 2007, we have been working with teams from across the adidas brand to conduct research on product environmental impacts, discover what design changes will both improve performance and environmental care, and provide product creation teams with the tools they need to ensure that more sustainable apparel and footwear make it successfully to the marketplace. We work across all relevant functions of the adidas brand and with peers in the industry, to provide you with more sustainable products as well as with more information on the ways how these products are made – so you can make a well-informed purchase decision.

Summing up the webinar “Dismantling the barriers to energy efficiency”

Elizabeth TurnbullJanuary 29, 2013 5:00 pmSustainability Aspects

As previously announced on this blog, I recently took part in a webinar organized by GreenBiz called “Dismantling the barriers to energy efficiency”.

The aim of the webinar was to show how the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) can help companies identify and overcome barriers to successful energy saving through their fellowship program. As a matter of fact, I am one of the many MBA students that have been trained by the EDF on the fundamentals of energy efficiency, and I was then really excited to join the adidas Group and its Corporate Real Estate Team to identify, quantify and prioritize energy efficiency investments in our North American properties.