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https://www.propublica.org/article/nike-layoffs-sustainability-climate-change>
"Eight years ago, the world’s largest sports apparel brand made a bold
commitment. Nike was embarking on what it called a moonshot: doubling its
business while halving its impact on the warming planet.
To get there, then-CEO Mark Parker said the Oregon-based company’s innovations
in environmental sustainability would become a “powerful engine for growth,” a
catalyst capable of changing industries. The company’s chief sustainability
officer at the time, Hannah Jones, said achieving the goal would take
“innovation on a scale we’ve never seen before.”
Nike’s Sustainable Innovation team embodied the commitment. It looked for
environmentally friendly new materials, like leather made from kelp and foams
made from plants, that could replace some of the hundreds of millions of pounds
of rubber, leather and cotton used in traditional Nike products. It assisted in
testing and refining the foam in the new Pegasus 41 that Nike says cut the
carbon footprint of the shoe’s midsole by at least 43%.
So it came as a surprise one Sunday night in December when the dozen or so
people on the team got summoned to a mandatory meeting the next morning. In a
Zoom call before sunrise, they learned why. The team was being eliminated. The
vice president who ran the team was gone. The call lasted less than 10 minutes.
It was the first in a series of deep cuts that one former Nike employee called
“the sustainability bloodbath.”
With sales flatlining, Nike executives in December announced a plan to cut
costs by $2 billion over three years. Those cuts have dealt a big blow to
Nike’s sustainability workforce."
Via Diane A.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
