Reebok

How sustainable is Reebok?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­rify on March 22^nd 2020

Reebok is an Ame­ri­can fit­ness brand and is part of Adi­das Group, the ove­rar­ching com­pany of Adi­das, Reebok and Tay­lor­ma­de. With the pro­duc­tion of 448 million pairs of shoes in 2019, Adi­das Group ranks lar­gest sports manu­fac­tu­rer in Euro­pe, and second lar­gest in the world. Gene­rally, the com­pany has a good repu­tation in terms of cor­po­ra­te res­pon­si­bi­lity. It par­ti­ci­pa­tes in a lar­ge num­ber of pro­jects and com­mit­tees to further impro­ve its sus­tai­na­bi­lity and has already reached sig­ni­fi­cant milestones.

Moving for­ward

As a foun­ding mem­ber of the Bet­ter Cot­ton Initia­ti­ve, Adi­das has been using 100% more sus­tai­na­ble cot­ton sin­ce 2018. For a com­pany that pro­du­ces the amount that Adi­das does, this is a huge achie­ve­ment that sig­ni­fi­cantly redu­ces car­bon emis­sions, and use of che­mi­cals and water. This is the result of a sus­tai­na­bi­lity stra­tegy that the Ger­man giant has been true to for years, and for which it now reaps the fruits becau­se a big chunk of other spor­ts­wear com­pa­nies are only just get­ting star­ted with more sus­tai­na­ble mate­rials. Adi­das keeps paving the way for spor­ts­wear com­pa­nies and their mate­rial use. Currently, it’s using a lar­ge amount of recy­cled pol­yes­ter and aims to repla­ce all vir­gin pol­yes­ter. The leather it uses is cer­ti­fied by the Leather Wor­king Group. The brand is also increa­sing the sus­tai­na­bi­lity of its mate­rials by tea­ming up with Par­ley for the Oceans to upcy­cle plas­tic lit­ter to yarn for its X Par­ley products.

Too many ques­tion marks

Whi­le Adi­das gets a lot of things right in terms of mate­rial usa­ge, it has a sig­ni­fi­cant amount of other things to impro­ve upon. The­re is sig­ni­fi­cant room for impro­ve­ment in terms of trans­pa­rency. The com­pany uses cer­ti­fied leather, but does not spe­cify the usa­ge of cer­ti­fied down or wool, which are con­si­de­ra­ble steps to take towards ensu­ring bet­ter ani­mal wel­fa­re. In terms of wor­kers’ rights, we know that the Ger­man-born brand is a mem­ber of the Fair Labor Asso­cia­tion, but we have no evi­den­ce that it makes an effort for pay­ment of a living wage in its supply chain. Adi­das men­tions using rene­wa­ble energy in its own faci­li­ties in Ger­many, but doesn’t dis­clo­se foreign faci­li­ties. The same holds up for its supply chain, which it has fully map­ped and published, without ela­bo­ra­ting on emis­sions. The­re are more exam­ples to be found in the repor­ting, which is simply not trans­pa­rent and seems a bit like cherry pic­ked sta­tis­tics and data disclosure.

Not fair enough

Things are loo­king good in terms of cli­ma­te action though. Adi­das has sig­ned the UN Fashion Industry Char­ter for Cli­ma­te Action, which is a com­mit­ment to an emis­sions reduc­tion of 30% and the step­ping sto­ne towards car­bon neu­tra­lity in 2050. The com­pany is also taking con­si­de­ra­ble steps towards reduc­tion of water usa­ge, gene­ra­ted was­te and pac­ka­ging. The brand with the ico­nic three-stri­ped logo varia­tions shows great lea­dership and ownership of its res­pon­si­bi­lity to pro­du­ce in a fair man­ner, but is simply not the­re yet. Espe­cially when we com­pa­re it to youn­ger brands that are sus­tai­nably built from the ground up, Adi­das has a long way to go.

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