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Nike is one of the most popular activewear brands in the world, so just how ethical is Nike? Our research shows the brand is making a start, but the sportswear giant still has work to do across the board. In this article, we dive into the brand&#;s &#;It&#;s a Start&#; rating, which was published in May and may not reflect claims the brand has made since then. Our ratings analysts are constantly rerating the thousands of brands you can check on our directory.
Though it seems everybody has at least one pair of Nikes, that popularity has come in spite of a lot of ethical concerns raised throughout the brand&#;s history. While it&#;s known for its inspiring advertising that reflects the diversity of people in sports, the Just Do It brand has also come under fire in the past for links to sweatshops and unethical manufacturing.
So how does this brand rate today when it comes to its treatment of people, the planet, and animals? How ethical and sustainable is activewear brand Nike? Here&#;s what Good On You&#;s analysts found in their recent re-rating.
Nike had been accused of using sweatshops to produce its sneakers and activewear since the s, but the issues really came into the spotlight in when activist Jeff Ballinger published a report detailing the low wages and poor working conditions in Nike&#;s Indonesian factories. Soon after, the brand came under fire and became the subject of a sustained campaign by United Students Against Sweatshops.
Nike was initially slow to respond in the &#;90s&#;but under increasing pressure, it eventually made some changes by improving its monitoring efforts, raising the minimum age of workers, and increasing factory audits.
Since then, the brand has earned plaudits for many of its efforts. In , for example, Business of Fashion reported that Nike has successfully transformed its tarnished image to become a &#;recognised sustainability leader.&#; Morgan Stanley even ranked Nike &#;the most sustainable apparel and footwear company in North America for environmental and social performance, including its labour record.&#;
While that all sounds like progress, is this actually the case?
Though Nike has successfully improved its reputation and has become a top-selling activewear brand globally, many of its practices are still problematic.
In , Nike took a big step backwards, as the International Labor Rights Forum reported that the company had turned its back on its commitment to the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). This move effectively blocked labour rights experts from independently monitoring Nike&#;s supplier factories. In and Nike received a 51-60% score in the Fashion Transparency Index (in the same scoring range as the previous year), suggested it started going in the right direction again for transparency.
But in May , Nike was hit with a class action lawsuit over &#;greenwashed&#; sustainability claims. &#;The 47-page &#;greenwashing&#; lawsuit charges broadly that Nike has illegally attempted to capitalise on consumers&#; preference for &#;green&#; products by falsely claiming that certain apparel tagged with &#;sustainable&#; claims and marketed as supporting the retailer&#;s waste- and carbon-reducing &#;Move to Zero&#; initiative are, unbeknownst to the public, made from non-biodegradable plastic-based materials,&#; reports ClassAction.org.
It&#;s like Nike is in an on-again-off-again relationship with doing the right thing, begging for some stability.
We rate Nike &#;It&#;s a Start&#; for the planet. Though Nike has made a few positive changes to its environmental practices and is a member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, it still has a way to go before it can truly be called a more sustainable brand. Nike uses some lower-impact materials, including organic and recycled cotton. The brand has also set a deadline to eliminate hazardous chemicals by and the good news is that it&#;s on track to meet its target. But while Nike has set a science-based target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated from its operations and supply chain, there is no evidence it is on track to meet that target. And there&#;s no evidence it&#;s taking actions to protect biodiversity in its supply chain.
Nike&#;s labour rating is also &#;It&#;s a Start&#;. Though the brand has focused on female empowerment and inclusiveness in its advertising campaigns, the women who work for Nike&#;from factories to headquarters&#;are seemingly left out of this picture. In , Nike was sued by two former female employees who accused the sneaker giant of creating a culture of gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
On a positive note, the company is Fair Labor Association (FLA) Workplace Code of Conduct certified. It also implements practices to encourage diversity and inclusion in some of its supply chain, and it disclosed adequate policies to protect suppliers in its supply chain from the impacts of COVID-19 during the heights of the pandemic (though not workers).
The Foul Play report by the Clean Clothes Campaign and Collectif Ethique sur l&#;Etiquette shows just how far Nike has to go when it comes to living wages. It highlights the difference between the ever-increasing amount of money paid on sponsorships to sports stars and other marketing expenses, compared to the reduction of the share of the final price of your sports gear paid to workers in the supply chain. The report calls on both Nike and Adidas to commit to paying living wages across their supply chains by a specific date and other supporting action. Read more about living wages for garment workers here.
In previous ratings of Nike, we couldn&#;t find evidence the brand ensured payment of a living wage in most of its supply chain. When we reviewed the brand in May , we found that Nike now claims to have a program to improve wages but found no evidence it indeed ensures its workers are paid living wages in most of its supply chain.
Nike does not use fur or angora in its products, which may not be that surprising given its activewear category. However, it does use wool, down, exotic animal skin, shearling, exotic animal hair, and silk without specifying sources. It uses some recycled leather in its leather products. This lack of transparency is problematic as the welfare of animals and workers is unknown. Because of this, we have given the brand a rating of &#;Not Good Enough&#; for animal welfare and hope for more progress soon.
So, how sustainable is Nike? Overall, we rate Nike &#;It&#;s a Start&#; based on information from our own research. Though Nike has a few promising environmental measures in place, it&#;s clear that the company is not doing as much as it should and needs to make serious changes in most areas. With an annual revenue of over $46.7bn in , the sportswear giant can certainly afford it.
Good On You ratings consider hundreds of issues, and it is not possible to list every relevant issue in a summary of the brand&#;s performance. For more information, see our How We Rate page and our FAQs.
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If you love the Nike vibe but prefer to support brands doing &#;Good&#; or &#;Great&#;, we&#;ve rounded up some more sustainable alternatives to Nike for you below.
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Update: Nike also contributes to the mass slaughter of Kangaroos. According to the campaign Kangaroos Are Not Shoes, &#;More than two million kangaroos are shot each year in Australia. It&#;s the largest land-based commercial wildlife slaughter in the world.&#; Please join the campaign and sign this petition to get rid of this cruel practice.
Nike is the biggest supplier of athletic shoes worldwide. They don&#;t just design and make every sneaker with the instantly recognizable &#;swoosh&#; on them; they also own Vans and Converse. So, even if you&#;ve consciously avoided buying from the brand, chances are you might have something of theirs tucked inside your wardrobe.
Over a decade ago, Nike was synonymous with sweatshops and bad labor conditions. In recent years, that reputation has quietly faded into the background. Does that mean they are doing better? Or did they just get better at PR?
By now, most people know how damaging the fashion industry is to the environment. Most Nike products are either made out of cotton or polyester, both of which can be very polluting.
Starting with cotton, the Ethical Consumer found that Nike has not set clear intentions with their approach to the pesticides and herbicides used to grow cotton crops. They have incorporated some organic cotton into their products and also use Better Cotton Initiative cotton here and there. However, not all of their cotton is sustainable, and they haven&#;t expressed interest in using 100% sustainable cotton.
Recycled polyester is made from plastic bottles that are ground up and spun into yarn. You don&#;t need any virgin plastic to make recycled polyester, although it does sometimes require more chemicals, dye, and water since recycled fiber can be hard to dye. It is a more sustainable option than virgin polyester, although plastic-based fibers are inherently toxic to the environment and marine life.
You will get efficient and thoughtful service from fortune.
Nike proudly states that they use more recycled polyester than any other company in the industry. That&#;s great, but when you think about how large Nike is, we should expect nothing less of them.
One sustainability assessment on Nike published around a decade ago found that despite the brand making public plans to change and be better for the planet, &#;there&#;appears to be fewer tangible results than plans made.&#;
Good On You&#;s assessment of the brand concluded similarly, saying, &#;it&#;s clear that the company is not doing as much as it should and needs to make serious changes in most areas.&#; This demonstrates that Nike has consistently made little effort to take the necessary steps to actually become a cleaner company.
Nike has been using sweatshops since the s. In recent years, they&#;ve been applauded for completely transforming their production, but most of this progress appears to be superficial.
In , Nike severed its ties with the Worker Rights Consortium, which let labor rights experts monitor their factories. This was a huge disservice to the countless laborers who spent their days hunched over making their 200-dollar shoes. They improved their transparency by , but their commitment to ethical labor practices is inconsistent at best.
The most recent scandal Nike&#;s been involved in takes place in the Xinjiang region of China. According to the Washington Post, Nike, along with a plethora of other well-known brands, have been making their products in a factory that used Uighurs &#;consistent with the International Labour Organization&#;s definition of forced labor.&#;
Laborers were also forced to undergo ideological training. This information became public in early .
Upon the news of how Uighurs were being treated, Nike came out and said they were reviewing their supply chains.
Nike is not new to a few protests. In , they saw a new wave of protests organized by United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). In , Nike co-founder Phil Knight cleaned up their image and committed to more ethical practices, but that commitment was short-lived.
USAS spoke up against the mistreatment of workers in several of their sweatshops, including one in Vietnam where workers &#;suffered wage theft and verbal abuse, and labored for hours in temperatures well over the legal limit of 90 degrees, to the point that they would collapse at their sewing machines.&#;
The USAS protest spread past country borders, and workers in countries being taken advantage of by Nike spoke out and demanded the company be held responsible for their actions.
Nike also has a bad track record for not hiring minority workers. In July , about 30 demonstrators lined up outside the Nike headquarters near Beaverton, Oregon, to protest. Oregon Lives says that despite Black athletes and Black culture helping make Nike their money, people of color are not welcomed into their corporate culture behind closed doors.
While Nike does have a few shoes made from vegan leather, they still use leather, down, and wool in some of their products. They do not provide information about where these materials are sourced. Their dedication to animal welfare is far from impressive, and they need to make an effort to eliminate animal skins, plumes, and furs from their products.
The introduction of recycled cotton and polyester into some of its collections is a start. However, Nike still has a lot to do regarding ethical labor practices and using ethical and sustainable materials.
If anyone has the funds and resources to make the right environmental choices, it&#;s Nike. They&#;ve clearly got the talk down, now it&#;s time to walk.
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