Can the Athletic Wear Industry Save the Planet?

By Tyler Nelson 

 

The World is Ending

You know this, don’t you? If you don’t believe it, you’ve heard it. A long list of culprits responsible for inciting fear in the public mind: global warming, carbon pollution, overpopulation, and nuclear warfare are among the doomsday theories shared across society today. These ideas can affect markets worldwide, meaning corporations must convince the world that they are impacting the world for good and contributing to the environment, society, and the future.

In this report, we will analyze the changes that athletic wear companies are making to move towards sustainability and how those changes affect companies and the environment. Do companies that focus on  using sustainable or recycled materials see an advantage as they market to the public eye? Do their efforts make a difference?

By looking at results from companies like Nike, Adidas, or Lululemon, we can see what further measures should be taken to protect our world down the road. We will finish by explaining consumer’s impact on these efforts and what they can do to continue influencing environmental sustainability.

 

What Is It About Athletic Wear?

First, the clothing and shoe industry has a substantial influence has on the global economy. Clothing and shoes accounted for the second-highest non-essential spending per U.S. household this year.¹

While the industry is one of the largest in the world, its growth has been slowing due to new market trends that oppose the traditional roots of clothing and fashion companies. The Fitch Solutions United States Consumer & Retail Report tells us that “the resale trend is becoming increasingly mainstream with the growing adoption of second-hand clothing and footwear items as consumers become more aware of the environmental impact of fashion.”² This forces corporations to start getting creative to reach their target market.

Younger generational cohorts like Millennials and Gen Z require a new approach from apparel companies because they prefer to spend their money in other industries at the expense of their fashion budget. “Both millennials and Gen Z are significantly concerned about the climate crisis and prioritize value alignment when looking for prospective employers, leaving companies that don’t live up to their stated values.”³

A Surprising Market Trend

The generational cohorts mentioned have created a brand-new market trend that has rarely been seen before: consumers are often more likely to purchase from a second-hand vendor or pass on a product based on their environmental concerns. If a company does not show its clients that they are contributing back to society, they will likely face defeat in the eyes of these new groups that find these environmental issues essential to their identity.⁴

The business world has responded to help stockholders and consumers build confidence in where their money is being placed. The United Nations Sustainable

Development Goals (SDGs) have played a large part in global sustainability. “The SDGs which have been adopted by 193 countries, serve as a collection of seventeen north-star goals ranging from poverty elimination to climate change. Thanks to this initiative, we now have a big picture and easy to understand breakdown of our global challenges.”⁵

Sustainability Reporting

Another new trend in responsible business management includes sustainability reports. Companies file reports each year that describe in detail the sustainability efforts they have made to fulfill the SDG requirements and give back to society.

The research on the effectiveness of sustainability reporting provides the image of a two-edged sword: companies that focus on diligently reporting their sustainable efforts find a higher market value because shareholders and consumers find them more trustworthy and genuine; they also find that these efforts hinder their financial success.⁶

What Is Being Done?

Several efforts are being put forth to create new sustainable materials and recycle otherwise harmful materials being disposed of in nature by humankind. We will look at two recent developments from the month this article was written.

DuPont Sorona Polymer

Weeks before this report was published, a home textile company from India partnered with DuPont, a multi-national chemical company, to release a Sorona polymer material developed from 37% plant-based materials.⁷ Sorona fibers have been used in athletic wear for some time, but only through its companionship with polymer and plastic materials.

MIT Polyethylene

An engineering team at MIT has successfully created a plastic fabric from recycled polyethylene (also known as PE). One of the researchers explained the benefits of this new PE fabric: “Fabrication of PE requires less energy and water than conventional synthetic and natural textiles, and releases less contaminants into the environment as a result… Stain resistance and fast drying will allow users to save energy and water during the use phase (in washing and tumble-drying), as well as reduce the use of detergents. Our functional fabrics are monomaterials, meaning they only contain PE and no other polymers blended into fabrics or coated on the fibers, making the garment fully recyclable.”⁸  According to their designers, the polymer developed by DuPont and the MIT team’s “fabric of the future”⁹ is perfect for athletic wear.¹⁰

Environmental Impact Projects

It is not just about creating new materials: the story also includes athletic wear companies’ efforts  to change their product line and provide a more sustainable option for consumers.

Lululemon

Lululemon is one of the fastest-growing athletic wear companies in the world, and they started two new sustainable impact campaigns in late 2020. A pilot trade-in program allows consumers to receive gift cards for gently used clothing items. They also relased a new clothing line that utilizes what the company calls “Earth Dye,” a natural dye created from the waste of oranges, beets, and trees. This dye creates much less harmful waste as compared to conventional clothing dyes.¹¹

Nike

While Nike’s footwear department saw a 2% decrease in sustainable materials used between 2020 and 2021 (from 31% to 29%), they are focused on new designs using the sustainable materials they have already created (including Flyknit, Flyleather, recycled poly and nylon, and sustainably sourced cotton).¹² In the clothing department, Nike has gone from a 19% sustainable material input in 2015 to 59% this year.¹³

Adidas

Adidas has been working hard to develop sustainable products since 2015, when they made their partnership with Parley for the Oceans.¹⁴ This year, Adidas announced their plans to sell five million pairs of ocean plastic shoes at an average retail price of $220, creating anticipation for over $1 billion in revenue from their recycled plastic shoe line. “Adidas has announced that it intends to use 100% recycled polyester in all of its products (where solutions exist) by 2024.”¹⁵

Small Business, Big Impact

It’s not just the world’s largest competitors attempting to reduce their carbon footprint. Smaller businesses are making some of the most impressive progress in this department around the globe.

Allbirds

After a successful soccer career, Tim Brown started a B-Corporation named Allbirds that specializes in producing pairs of shoes from natural materials with a fraction of the carbon emissions most shoes require. Their sustainability report states, “The Allbirds average footwear carbon footprint was 7.6 kg CO2e per pair in 2019, which is nearly 40% lower than the 12.5 kg CO2e carbon footprint of a standard sneaker.”¹⁶

Allbirds approaches its sustainability goal by implementing natural materials in its shoes. The shoe is made from merino wool, a unique type of wool from the New Zealand region. Not only does it reduce carbon emissions, but it also reduces odor from your foot!

Cotopaxi

Davis Smith, a Brigham Young University alumnus, took another approach to clean the earth through good business. Davis launched Cotopaxi, a company that takes repurposed materials thrown out by other outdoor brands and makes backpacks, clothing, and other accessory items. Their impact report from 2020 relates that “Using repurposed or recycled fabrics limits our dependence on fossil fuels and diminishes our waste outputs.”¹⁷  Their line of products includes a “Del Día” collection, made from 100% repurposed materials. The colorful designed backpacks and jackets are just the beginning of a wide variety of repurposed and recycled materials being used for good.

Is It Helping?

In the “State of the Air” report written this year, the American Lung Association states that “More than four in ten Americans (41.1%–more than 135 million Americans) are living in the 217 counties across the nation with monitors that are capturing unhealthy levels ozone or particle pollution.”¹⁸

While the COVID-19 pandemic supposedly put on hold the amount of carbon pollution being emitted around the globe, 2021 quickly caught up and surpassed the pre-pandemic levels of ozone particles being recorded.¹⁹ Did we mention that the three years leading up to 2020 ranked among the hottest six years in recorded history?²⁰

Figure 1: CO2 Emissions Since 2000²¹

Other data collected will tell you a different story. The average number of contaminant particles in the United States dropped from 13.4 in 1990 to 7.66 in 2019.²² To put it simply, while industries like fossil fuels are not improving, things like air pollution are still declining thanks to efforts others are making.

Figure 2: Air Pollution in the United States Since 1990²³

What Can You Do?

Athletic wear companies play a big part in global trade and have the potential to make a significant change in sustainability and environmental care efforts. While goals like Adidas’ 100% recycled polyester effort are still several years away, large strides are being taken by designers and engineers to shrink these carbon footprints. Consumers should support these sustainable products to encourage large corporations to continue their environmental efforts.

By doing research as consumers and learning what companies are putting into their products and how they are giving back, we can lead the way toward the sustainability goals the United Nations set in the last few years.

What suggestions are there for those who want to contribute to making a difference? Checking annual sustainability reports from your favorite brands, reviewing the tag on clothing items for material information, and supporting sustainable products manufactured by B-Corp organizations are all important steps each of us can take to change the world one t-shirt at a time.

Notes

1. United States Consumer & Retail Report – Q4 2021. London: Fitch Solutions Group Limited, 2021. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2575134832?accountid=4488.
2. Fitch Solutions Group Limited, “United States Consumer & Retail Report – Q4 2021”, 2021.
3. Kate Van Der Merwe. “The Business Case for Sustainability.” Accountancy Ireland 51, no. 6 (12, 2019): 58-59. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2387338670?accountid=4488.
4. Barbara Borusiak, Andrzej Szymkowiak, David Lopez-Lluch, and Paola Sanchez-Bravo. “The Role of Environmental Concern in Explaining. Attitude Towards Second-Hand Shopping.”
5. Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review 9, no. 2 (2021): 71-83. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.15678/EBER.202 1.090205. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2546658545.
6. 3BL Blogs: A Global SDG Competition to Inspire the Next Generation of Sustainability Leadership. Chatham: Newstex, 2018.
7. Amina Buallay. “Between Cost and Value: Investigating the Effects of Sustainability Reporting on a firm’s Performance.” Journal of Applied Accounting Research 20, no. 4 (2019): 481-496. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2316708227.
8. “Welspun India and DuPont Biomaterials Join Hands.” Apparel Resources (Oct 05, 2021). https://www.proquest.com/docview/2580342849?accountid=4488.
9. “Converting Polyethylene into Sustainable, Water-Wicking Fabrics.” Chemical Engineering Progress, 05, 2021, 8-9, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2522177646?accountid=4488.
10. “Converting Polyethylene into Sustainable, Water-Wicking Fabrics.”
11. “Converting Polyethylene into Sustainable, Water-Wicking Fabrics.”
12. Glenn Taylor. “Lululemon’s Sustainability Strategies Take Shape in $1.2B Quarter.” Sourcing Journal (Online) (Jun 04, 2021). https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/retail/lululemon-q1-sustainability-like-new-earth-dye-athleisure-athleticwear-china-283355/.
13. Jessica Binns. “Nike Strides Toward Ambitious Sustainability Goals.” Sourcing Journal (Online) (Apr 22, 2021). https://www.proquest.com/docview/2516568951?accountid=4488.
14. Binns, “Nike Strides Toward Ambitious Sustainability Goals”, 2021.
15. Afdhel Aziz. “The Power of Purpose: How Adidas Will Make $1 Billion Helping Solve the Problem of Ocean Plastic.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, October 31, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/afdhelaziz/2018/10/29/the-power-of-purpose-how-adidas-will-make-1-billion-helping-solve-the-problem-of-ocean-plastic/?sh=151ca350d215.
16. Aziz, “The Power of Purpose”, 2021.
17. 2020 Allbirds Sustainability Report. Allbirds, September 10, 2021. https://cdn.allbirds.com/image/upload/v1625161698/marketing-pages/Allbirds_Sustainability_Report_2020.pdf.
18. Annie Agle. 2020 Impact Report. Cotopaxi, January 31, 2021. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0281/7544/files/Cotopaxi-Impact-Report2020.pdf?v=11387258469521772016.
19. “Key Findings: State of the Air.” State of the Air | American Lung Association. American Lung Association, 2021. https://www.lung.org/research/sota/key-findings.
20. American Lung Association, “Key Findings”, 2021. 20. American Lung Association, “Key Findings”, 2021.
21. Global Carbon Project. “Annual global CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2019 (in billion metric tons).” Chart. December 11, 2020. Statista. Accessed October 28, 2021. https://www-statista-com.erl.lib.byu.edu/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/.
22. IHME, und Health Effects Institute. “Average PM2.5 pollution levels in the United States from 1990 to 2019 (in micrograms per cubic meter)*.” Chart. October 23, 2020. Statista. Accessed October 28, 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1137388/united-states-pm25-air-pollution-exposure/.
23. IHME, “Average PM2.5 pollution levels”, 2020.