Nike’s SCAP working with its biggest suppliers to decarbonize its supply chain

29 / 09 / 2021

By Marwa Nassar - -

Nike’s Supplier Climate Action Program (SCAP) works with some of Nike’s biggest suppliers to develop a long-term plan for de-carbonizing the supply chain and reimagining their business strategies from the inside out in the name of growth and sustainability.

Marine Graham, VP of Responsible Sourcing and Manufacturing, said “Our team used to be called ‘sustainable manufacturing and sourcing,’ but recently we made the decision to change the name to ‘responsible sourcing.’ The shift may seem small, but it was essential. It acknowledges that sustainable practices throughout our extended supply chain are the responsible thing to do for people and the planet and using the right words to describe our work matters, to us and to our partners.”

“Climate change is already impacting some of our key suppliers. It’s not a theoretical, in-the-future disruption. It’s real and tangible now, requiring shared solutions. The upshot is that we’re able to look at these problems — floods, droughts, power shortages or outages — and work with our suppliers to create ways to increase resilience and business continuity. First, we discuss measurements with our partners that can help us understand our direct climate impact. These include measuring corporate-wide emissions and setting science-based reduction targets and publicly disclosing them. Then we bring our partners together in learning communities or forums to share their experiences of dealing with climate events and which solutions worked, from changing production methods to energy sourcing,” she added.

“Nike’s scale empowers us to get after climate change in our own specific way. When I think of scale, I think about our workforce and extended supply chain, which is more than a million people across dozens of countries who work for our suppliers and make our product day in, day out. When you think about the scale of the manufacturing partners we work with, they are huge businesses in their own right. Many of them are big publicly traded companies, and we’re just part of their portfolio. But we want each of our suppliers to take a leadership role in sustainability. So when I think about the work we’re doing to shrink our carbon footprint, the cool part is that we’re actually changing the way our suppliers do business, not only for their Nike portfolio, but for their entire enterprise,” she said.

“We’re creating supplier relationships that will help us imagine a future that’s even bolder than our current plan. In that future vision, we aim to be carbon-neutral and circular. We believe that we can put an ambitious plan into motion together with our sourcing partners, and that they can be at the top of their industries for goals connected to sustainability. It’s less about getting there at a specific date in the future and more about the journey and how hard we push to get there,” she added.