Nike has a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics that includes its commitment to the environment and is a signatory of the UN Global Compact. Nike has created a team of sustainability managers led by an independent director. Its environmental goals include producing 'eco-friendly ' products and minimizing its environmental impact through the reduction of greenhouse gases, organic solvents and PVCs.
Nike acknowledges the difficulty of tracking environmental emissions and the use of materials in supply factories, and is currently exploring new ways to best respond to these difficulties and enforce environmental compliance. All major material suppliers are audited with a focus on reducing chemicals. Facility initiatives include recycling and energy efficiency, reducing water usage and monitoring corporate travel. In 2005, Nike began collecting baseline data on more than 650 contract factories in 52 countries, conducting 65 audits, and 15 in-depth root cause assessments. The results told showed that the greatest Environmental, Safety and Health (ESH) issues are in specific factory types (footwear, vertical apparel and inflatable facilities which make products such as basketballs, volleyballs and soccer balls) and the majority of those contract factories are in 10 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. Nike then used factory type and country filters to focus its ESH efforts on about 70 contract factories that employ about half of the contract factory workers around the world. Chemical exposure, worker protection, fire safety, and maintenance related safety are the most significant ESH issues in contract factories. To that end, the company is working to improve worker health in contract factories through auditing and analysis, training and factory capacity building, integrating factory management systems, and reducing solvents. Additionally, with increasing
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