Personally, one of my favourite places to shop is at Nike, a world-leading sports brand! Nike offers a range of products, from sportswear to shoes and even casual everyday outfits. While scrolling through its website, I noticed Nike’s increasing effort to reduce its environmental footprint through several means. One way they are encouraging sustainability is through the campaign, ‘Move to Zero’. In this campaign, Nike aims to achieve zero carbon and zero waste to help safeguard the future of sports and fashion. Under this campaign, one section was dedicated to Protecting the Planet.

To protect the planet, one significant measure undertaken by Nike is to reduce waste (Nike, 2022). Some efforts by Nike to eliminate waste are through conquering the basics, which is to reduce defects (Nike, 2022). Moreover, Nike (2022) also eliminate waste and narrows pollution by limiting the impact of packaging. This is done by replacing single-use reusable cartons and total eradication of plastic bags from retail stores (Nike, 2022). With a lesser contribution of plastic to the world, it helps to minimise concerns regarding plastic pollution as explored earlier.

Nike also believes in operating under a circular economy. According to Oliveira et al. (2021), a circular economy argues for an economic structure where resource usage is reduced and there is a significant focus on diminishing the environmental footprint through recycle loops. Oliveira et al (2021) further assert that this can be done through cooperation between different stakeholders and altering consumption patterns.

Figure 1 shows a corner in Nike stores that promote and sell its Nike Refurbished products. (Source: Nike)

One way Nike showcases its circular economy is through ‘Nike Refurbished’ as seen in Figure 1 under the ‘Move to Zero’ campaign mentioned earlier. Nike would encourage athletes to donate their shoes where they will be recycled and reconstructed to extend their lifespan as a product and they can be released into the market again for purchase (Nike, n.d.).

Therefore, the studying of Nike’s sustainability efforts exemplifies how fast fashion companies are not necessarily bad, especially with their increasing efforts to narrow environmental pollution and footprints. Moreover, as someone who is striving to reduce my fashion footprint, it is heartening and encouraging to see my favourite everyday brand training to make this change!

 

Figure 2 is a screenshot taken from the Nike website on their efforts in Protecting the Planet. (Source: Nike)

However, although companies such as Nike are trying to practice transparency by giving statistics and reports about their sustainable efforts as seen in Figure 2, it is still paramount for us to remain on the fence and evaluate on the companies’ sustainability efforts. As noted in previous blogs, the Millennials and Generation Z are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious and are adopting alternatives to fast fashion, fashion companies could be labelling themselves as ‘sustainable’, ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘biodegradable’ due to the increasing pressure from society. Here, we have to be aware of spiralling into the possibility of ‘greenwashing’. According to de Freitas Netto et al. (2020), greenwashing refers to the practice of relaying deceptive opinions or false information regarding how a company’s products are environmentally friendly. This is done to envelop a company’s involvement in unsustainable practices and to boost companies’ profit as they entice environmentally conscious customers too (Hayes, 2023).

de Freitas Netto et al. (2020) also highlight some ways to decipher greenwashing. It includes identifying loopholes in their description. For instance, products could market themselves as being ‘CFC-free’ but in reality, the use of CFC is unlawful in many nations (de Freitas Netto et al., 2020). Another way to identify the possibility of greenwashing is by recognising the companies’ vagueness in their claims (de Freitas Netto et al., 2020). For instance, companies could excessively use labels such as “Green”, “Eco-friendly” and “Non-toxic” (de Freitas Netto et al., 2020). The use of these phrases should be accompanied by evidence in order to avoid allegations concerning greenwashing.

Is the company you believe in being environmentally friendly truly friendly? Read up on their efforts and do some research to find out more! With that, see you in the next blog post!

 

 

 

References 

de Freitas Netto, S. V., Sobral, M. F. F., Ribeiro, A. R. B., & Soares, G. R. da L. (2020). Concepts and forms of greenwashing: A systematic review. Environmental Sciences Europe, 32(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-020-0300-3

Hayes, A. (2023). What is greenwashing? How it works, examples, and statistics. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/greenwashing.asp

Nike. (2022). Eliminating Waste . Nike. https://about.nike.com/en/impact/initiatives/eliminating-waste

Nike . (n.d.). Protecting the Planet. Nike. https://about.nike.com/en/impact/focus-areas/protecting-the-planet

Oliveira, M., Miguel, M., van Langen, S. K., Ncube, A., Zucaro, A., Fiorentino, G., Passaro, R., Santagata, R., Coleman, N., Lowe, B. H., Ulgiati, S., & Genovese, A. (2021). Circular economy and the transition to a sustainable society: Integrated assessment methods for a new paradigm. Circular Economy and Sustainability, 1(1), 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00019-y