Nike

In October, Chad Park and Richard Blume represented The Natural Step at a press event in New York for the public launch of Nike’s Considered Design (“performance without compromising sustainability”). The Natural Step worked with Nike ten years ago to jump-start their earlier sustainability work and in 2008 we began helping them create a new set of innovation goals for their product lines.

Mark Parker, CEO of Nike Inc., made bold statements about the significance of Considered: “I see unlimited possibility with Considered and the potential for us to be a game changer. It is helping us to be a better, more responsible, more profitable company. I envision a time when all our products are closed loop using sustainable, low carbon design.”

Nike’s Considered Index has harnessed the ‘just do it’ mentality in service of sustainability and rewards designers for making good design choices (e.g. environmentally preferred materials, waste reductions, water-based solvents and step-change innovation). This tool has been a key leverage point - Nike exceeded its own expectations and smashed original internal targets by over 700%. They plan to share the Index in the spirit of industry-wide collaboration towards sustainability.

The Natural Step will continue to work with Nike on its vision and strategies to ensure that social and ecological sustainability are indeed considered. For more, read the case study of our work together, read our blog from the launch, our press release (below) and see photos from the launch on our Flickr’ photo sharing site.

Read the attached press release for more.  Contact information is also listed.