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Innovate. Activate. Sustain: Nike's Playbook for a Greener Tomorrow,empowering sustainable change through ambitious targets, transparent progress, and impactful partnerships.

Critical Challenges

Covering both environmental and social impact, explore how they are tackling each priority.

Promoting Good Health & Well Being

Nike tackles logistics in underserved areas, recruits and trains coaches, ensures inclusive facilities, achieves gender balance, tracks long term health outcomes, secures funding, builds community partnerships, and uses data to prove impact.

Gender Equality

Nike confronts gender equality hurdles, including leadership gaps, unconscious bias, uneven supplier support, and global pay equity. Addressing these demands requires inclusive training, transparent metrics, accountability, and persistent evaluation of systemic barriers across internal operations and external supply chains.

Decent Work & Economic Growth

Nike verifies conditions in over 1,100 factories, standardizes safety, health and environmental practices, and gathers wage data. It audits diverse suppliers, builds capacity, and implements scalable monitoring and worker advancement systems.

Climate Action

Nike grapples with rising Scope 3 emissions—up 17% since FY15—while aiming for a 30% cut by 2030. Supplier reliance on coal complicates renewable shifts. Corporate jet emissions rose, hindering overall progress.

Partnerships for the Goals

Nike faces challenges in aligning diverse stakeholders, competitors, governments, suppliers, with varying priorities and resources. Coordinating joint initiatives like the Arctic Shipping Pledge and the Fashion Industry Charter requires consensus on standards, measurement systems, and risk-sharing frameworks.

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Integrating circular design, creating materials like recycled polyester and bio based foams, improving manufacturing processes, collaborating with suppliers and researchers, educating consumers, and overcoming technical and cost barriers challenge Nike’s sustainability

Affordable & Clean Energy

Nike struggles to secure reliable clean energy in manufacturing regions, faces supplier infrastructure costs, and relies on carbon-intensive grids. Scaling solar, wind, and bioenergy demands incentives, cross-industry collaboration, and stable policies.

Clean Water &Sanitation

Nike faces water stress, textile dye processes, limited closed-loop systems, and supplier gaps. Overcoming regulatory and community risks requires waterless dye technologies, upstream collaboration, and robust monitoring to reduce freshwater use by 25%.

Responsible Consumption & Production

Meeting responsible consumption goals demands Nike divert one million tons of waste from landfills, eliminate harmful chemicals, standardize waste data, scale recycling, incentivize closed-loop manufacturing, redesign products, and improve material traceability.

Promoting Good Health & Well Being

Ensuring widespread access to sport programs challenges Nike with logistical complexities in underserved communities, recruiting and training qualified coaches, maintaining inclusive environments, achieving gender parity, and measuring long-term health outcomes. Sustaining engagement requires ongoing resource allocation, local partnerships, and data-driven strategies to demonstrate impact and justify continued investment in youth physical activity programs’ expanded reach.

Gender Equality

Meeting gender equality targets poses challenges for Nike due to underrepresentation in leadership, unconscious bias, uneven supplier engagement on women’s advancement, and sustaining pay equity across regions. Cultivating inclusive cultures demands comprehensive training, transparent metrics, and accountability. Establishing equitable opportunities at scale requires persistent evaluation of systemic barriers within corporate functions and external supply chains.

Decent Work and Economic Growth

Ensuring decent work across Nike’s supply chain faces challenges in verifying labor conditions in over 1,100 factories, standardizing health, safety, and environmental practices, and collecting reliable wage data. Engaging diverse suppliers to build world-class workspaces and improving worker participation demands comprehensive audit processes, capacity building, and scalable systems for ongoing monitoring and upward mobility metrics.

Climate Action

​Nike faces significant challenges in meeting its climate action goals. Notably, Scope 3 emissions, primarily from its supply chain, have risen by 17% since FY15, despite a target to reduce them by 30% by 2030. Many suppliers operate in regions dependent on coal-powered energy, making the shift to renewables both technically and financially demanding. Implementing renewable energy solutions across the supply chain requires substantial investment and infrastructure development, which can be difficult to coordinate and finance. Additionally, operational emissions, such as those from corporate jet travel, have increased, highlighting inconsistencies in emission reduction efforts. These factors collectively hinder Nike's progress toward its sustainability objectives.

Partnerships for the Goals

Nike faces challenges in aligning diverse stakeholders, competitors, governments, suppliers, with varying priorities and resources. Coordinating joint initiatives like the Arctic Shipping Pledge and the Fashion Industry Charter requires consensus on standards, measurement systems, and risk-sharing frameworks.

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Nike faces challenges in scaling innovation to reduce environmental impact. Integrating circular design across operations, developing low-carbon materials like recycled polyester and bio-based foams, and optimizing manufacturing processes are complex tasks. Collaborating with suppliers and research partners, along with educating consumers, is crucial to overcome technical, cost& barriers.

Affordable and Clean Energy

Transitioning to renewable energy presents challenges for Nike due to inconsistent availability of clean power in manufacturing regions, upfront supplier infrastructure costs, and reliance on carbon-intensive grid electricity. Scaling solar, wind, and bioenergy requires supplier incentives, cross-industry collaboration, and stable policy frameworks to achieve 100 % renewable electricity in owned facilities and supplier emission reductions.

Clean Water and Sanitation

Reducing water impact in textile processes challenges Nike with water stress across geographies, dyeing operations complexity, limited access to closed-loop systems, and supplier data gaps. Overcoming regulatory differences, community water rights, and ecological risks requires innovation in waterless dye technologies, upstream supply chain collaboration, and robust monitoring frameworks to achieve a 25 % reduction in annual freshwater usage.

Responsible Consumption and Production

Achieving responsible consumption production requires Nike to divert a million tons of waste from landfills, scale recycling infrastructure, and eliminate harmful chemistries across its value chain. Standardizing waste data collection, incentivizing closed-loop manufacturing, and adapting product design for circularity confront regulatory environments and complex logistics. Material traceability and product refurbishment models remain challenging to mainstream.

The Impact & Achievements of Nike

Explore Nike’s progress in environmental and social initiatives, highlighting key milestones and ongoing efforts.

In Progress

50%

Half of Nike’s key materials now meet lower-impact criteria, cutting emissions and resource use. This transition supports its science-based targets and could eliminate 500,000 metric tons of GHGs yearly (Nike FY23 Impact Report). The target is 100% by 2025

Achieved

96%

Nike sourced 96% renewable electricity for its owned and operated facilities in FY23, up from 48% in FY20. This transition is part of Nike’s “Move to Zero” initiative, aiming for 100% renewable energy by 2025. The shift has contributed to a 69% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from these facilities since 2020. Nike’s strategy includes both on-site renewable energy installations and off-site procurement through power purchase agreements.

Achieved

100%

​Nike has achieved 100% waste diversion from landfill in its Tier 1 manufacturing facilities. Of this diverted waste, 75% is recycled back into Nike products or materials, supporting the company’s circular economy initiatives. This accomplishment aligns with Nike’s commitment to sustainability and reducing environmental impact

In Progress

50%

Strategic material suppliers have reduced water use by over 50% in dyeing and finishing processes, covering 80% of material production. This progress comes from improved equipment, water treatment systems, and local water restoration efforts, supporting Nike’s 30% water reduction target set for 2025.

Achieved

44%

Women now represent 44% of Nike’s leadership roles globally—up from 36% in 2020—reflecting progress toward its 45% by-2025 goal through leadership development, mentorship programs, targeted recruitment initiatives, and efforts to attract, retain, and promote female talent across all functions.

Zero in Sight: Nike Carbon Neutrality by 2050

Nike is on a mission to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, reimagining every step from materials to logistics so as to protect the future of sport and our planet.​

Five steps towards achieving our goals

2000 - 2010

Step 1

​Building the Foundation

2010 - 2020

Step 2

Scaling Impact

2020 - 2030

Step 3

Transforming Operations

2030 - 2040

Step 4

Nearing Carbon Neutrality

2040 - 2050

Step 5

Carbon Neutrality Achieved

  • Building the Foundation
  • Scaling Impact
  • Transforming Operations
  • Nearing Carbon Neutrality
  • Nearing Carbon Neutrality

“Sport. It moves us, challenges us, and brings us together like few other things can. It’s through community and partnership that Nike pursues its goal of creating a better world, one that’s more inclusive, equitable and sustainable for all. We believe in doing the right thing, and this belief drives our teams to create meaningful change for athletes around the world, both on and off the playing field. Over the past year, we’ve helped more than one million kids get active, changing how sport is experienced by kids, especially young women and girls. We also spent $1.4 billion with diverse suppliers, a milestone that exceeds our 2025 target and continues to accelerate innovation and creativity across our business. And we reduced more than half of the carbon emissionsfrom facilities that we own or operate. And we’re working with governments and organizations to promote more sustainable practices across our industry. And while we’ve achieved incredible progress, we know there simply is no finish line. I’m excited for what lies ahead, fueled by connection, powered by community, and inspired by sport. Because the only way to win is to do it together.”​

“Sport moves us, pushes us, and unites us. At Nike, we work with partners and communities to build a more inclusive, fair, and sustainable world. Last year, we helped over one million children stay active, focusing on young women. We invested 1.4 billion dollars with diverse suppliers, cut facility emissions by more than half, and support greener practices industry wide.”

[John Donahoe] Chief Executive Officer

Our Sustainability Rating for Nike

Evaluating Nike’s environmental strides: progress made, challenges ahead, and the journey towards true sustainability.

Good Health and Wellbeing

4/5

Gender Equality

5/5

Affordable and Clean Energy

4/5

Decent Work and Economic Growth

3/5

Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

4/5

Responsible Consumption and Production

3.5/5

Climate Action

3.5/5

Life Below Water

2/5

Life on Land

2.5/5

Partnerships for the Goals

5/5

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