Nike Considered: Getting Traction On Sustainability

Business and Marketing
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Introduction
The company Nike was initially known as Blue Ribbon Sports and was discovered by Philip Knight and Bill Bowerman his coach. The organization first began as a distributor for a Japanese shoemaker but later grew to open its own retail shop in Santa Monica, California. By the year 1971, the company was ready to open up its own line of footwear. Their first designs came out in the year 1972. Later in the year 1978, the company changed its name to Nike. Today Nike is a well-recognized footwear and apparel company in all parts of the globe.
The company produces a variety of sports products and is also involved in coming up with the design, establishment and finally the marketing of their products. The company’s product portfolio includes shoes and apparels for various sports including basketball, football, athletics, tennis, and several others. Additionally, the company is also involved in the sale of performance equipment with the brand name Nike including socks, eyewear, bags, and several others. In the last two decades, the company Nike has been working tirelessly making sure that their methods of doing business are friendly to the environment. It is a measure that has made them stand out from the rest. Companies can emulate Nike’s example of going green because it is the only effective way of conserving the environment.
Background Information: Conserving the Environment
All companies in the world have a responsibility of conserving the environment for the well-being of each member of society. Over the last two decades, the destruction of the environment has reached dramatic levels with rivers and lakes drying up as a result. For that reason, environmentalists have been restricting companies from conducting their businesses in different ways which are not environmental friendly. The fight has not been easy for the environmentalist because some companies think of it as a way of getting in between the profits made from the huge productions. One thing that the companies forget however is the fact that they can make huge profits by adopting the environment-friendly techniques.
Nike is an exceptional company which has taken the concerns of the environmentalists very seriously. In the year 2008, they introduced 23rd iteration of the Air Jordan basketball shoe. In the previous years the company had been making such shoes but that year the version was different. The new Air Jordan design was made using environmentally friendly strategies for recycling the already used sneakers and minimizing the use of solvents. Before incorporating more environmentally friendly ideas the company was relying heavily on oil and fossil fuel. The two products are well known for causing serious destruction to the environment.
The Alternatives
In their strategy to ensure that they do not cause further destruction on the environment the company, Nike has reduced its carbon emission to approximately 3% throughout the whole process of production. The strategy has contributed to the company’s growth to around 26% over the same period. It, therefore, indicates that the measure is beneficial to the company because it gains a good reputation from the public by reducing the ...