Adidas Chemical Coalition ‘to Respond to Greenpeace Claims’

Adidas is in talks with competitors, including Nike and Puma, to develop a response to Greenpeace’s intensifying campaign on chemicals in the supply chain, Business Green reports.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, an Adidas spokeswoman told the website that the company has also had talks with H&M and Pentland, which makes Lacoste shoes, about creating an industry-wide collaboration to develop chemical management programs.

“We believe there needs to be an industry-wide approach and that’s why we’re trying to get together as a group,” she said. “We’ve already had first discussions with other brands and we’ve been in constant dialogue in the last couple of weeks.”

A spokesman for Greenpeace told Business Green the organization welcomed the news, but he urged Adidas to commit to an individual action plan.

The revelation follows last week’s news that Nike has bowed to pressure from Greenpeace and promised to eliminate all hazardous chemicals across its entire supply chain, and the entire life-cycle of its products, by 2020.

Greenpeace continued its “Dirty Laundry” campaign today with the release of a second report.

Today’s report says that Greenpeace has found nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) in clothing from 14 brands: Abercombie & Fitch, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Converse, G-Star RAW, H&M, Kappa, Lacoste, Li Ning, Nike, Puma, Ralph Lauren, Uniqlo and Youngor. These chemicals break down to form nonylphenol, which has toxic, persistent and hormone-disrupting properties, Greenpeace said.

Last month, Greenpeace’s first Dirty Laundry report accused many of the same companies of importing materials from Yongor Group, a Chinese conglomerate responsible for the pollution of rivers. The report said Yongor, China’s biggest integrated textile firm, was found to be discharging a range of hazardous and persistent chemicals with hormone-disrupting properties.