Sustainability Assessment of Nike Shoes
Andrew Derrig Jake Stocker Luke Warren Pearson King Ethan Tinson Ellen Winston

For Sustainability Science ENVS 195, Fall 2010, Dr. Saleem H. Ali

Introduction and Justification
In Greek, Nike means “victory” and since the beginning of the company in 1972, victory has been a term that has represented many things about the Nike brand. The Nike corporation produces athletic shoes, apparel, equipment and accessories that can be found in distributors in over 170 countries worldwide, it sponsors many professional and college level sports teams and has grown to be one of the largest athletic apparel corporations in the world. In the early „70s they started out manufacturing running shoes featuring innovative new technology that increased traction and made the shoe lighter as a whole. (Nike, 2010) Since then the Nike brand has taken off and become more than simply successful, it is infamous though for a few different reasons. The Nike name, generally linked to success and wealth, first got into trouble in the early „90‟s when footage of sweatshop and child labor in their factories was broadcast on international television, smearing their name across the globe. (Beder, 2002) In 1998 cofounder and CEO Phil Knight even recognized that the Nike name and product “has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse.”(Levenson, 2008) Since those dark days however, Nike has made a concerted effort to both improve their reputation as an internationally active corporation and improve their production and business practices. One of the ways in which these improvements were manifest was in a new focus on sustainability. Since the „90‟s Nike has been ranked 3rd in Corporate Responsibility Officer‟s Best Corporate Citizen‟s List as well as one of the World‟s Top Sustainable Stocks by Sustainable Business. (Epstein,