Since 2001, Nike has been working on measuring, understanding and reducing our environmental footprint; from our supply chain and logistics to our retail distribution and Nike-owned facilities.

In an effort to continue this important work we have been partnering with four of our contract footwear manufacturing factories in China and Vietnam to understand how much energy each factory uses, where in the factory the most energy is consumed and what the biggest opportunities are to reduce or optimize energy use.

Through this energy-efficiency project, Nike has come to understand that energy use and reduction opportunities are vastly different from factory to factory and as such there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.

As an example, the research found that a footwear factory can contain more than:

* 15,500 motors
* 10,000 light bulbs
* 6,000 sewing machines
* four separate compressor farms
* six separate chillers and many large boilers

The project work done to date has been invaluable. It’s helped us understand the complexity of the issues, as well as provide a blueprint for how we can move forward to demonstrate the project’s business value and build the case for further funding.

We publicly stated our aim to set climate-reduction goals for footwear contract manufacturing by January 2008. So while we are behind schedule, we believe we have made good progress in understanding how we can assist contract factories reduce their energy consumption and hence, reduce their climate footprint.

This June we hope to share a set of reduction goals for a contract factory pilot program, plus a blueprint to roll out the program to other key factories.

Click here to learn more about our Energy Efficiency plan.