Nike produces first corporate responsibility report
Nike has released its first corporate responsibility report, providing a public review of the company’s corporate responsibility practices. Included are a series of detailed reports on Nike's activities in respect of developing environmental sustainability; its efforts concerning understanding and managing global labour compliance; its commitment to diversity and its involvement in local communities.
The bulk of this first report is made up of two issues - the natural environment and labour compliance. Nike adopted its first corporate environmental policy in 1998, since when its environmental sustainability goals have evolved to include eliminating waste and potentially harmful substances from materials and manufacturing, and designing products that can either be collected and re-manufactured or safely returned to nature. To help monitor its progress on achieving its environmental goals, the company is one of four that have joined the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers programme - a voluntary initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The agreement covers greenhouse gas emissions in Nike-owned operations, as well as contracted manufacturing, shipping and travel.
In terms of labour compliance, the company currently has more than 30 employees – in addition to external independent monitoring - dedicated to ensuring that the workers at close to 750 contract factory sites throughout the world have good wages and a safe, fair and healthy work environment. The company has said that in this respect, although it is on track in some areas, it recognises that improvements are needed to its overall internal and external monitoring processes. They added that programmes such as training for factory managers will continue to be implemented to help ensure that Nike's code of conduct is upheld.
In 1999, Nike joined the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities with a minimum five-year commitment and a $7.8 million investment with a view to improving their understanding of what workers think of their jobs and their lives. The Global Alliance recently completed a comprehensive research project to determine the attitudes and aspirations of 4,000 workers in Nike contract factories in Indonesia and is currently operating in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, investing in programmes that directly address the needs and concerns that workers themselves have brought forward.
Over the next year, Nike will build some key performance indicators for corporate responsibility to help it gauge how it is doing. The company will seek input from its stakeholders on the development of these indicators.
Commenting overall on the report, Nike said that it remains incomplete as they are just beginning to truly understand what being a sustainable business means. Future reports, the company said, should reflect issues not tackled in this first version, as well as provide updates on the challenges identified in the 2001 report.
