Nike releases its green design tool
By Erik Siemers, Business Journal Staff Writer
Business Journal Staff Writer
Nike Inc. on Tuesday released to the public a tool to help designers build more sustainable products.
The Washington County-based athletic footwear and apparel brand spent seven years and $6 million developing the Environmental Apparel Design Tool, a Web-based portal that uses a scoring system to rate a product’s environmental impact.
“This tool is about making it simple for designers to make the most sustainable choices right at the start of the product creation process,” Hannah Jones, Nike’s vice president of sustainable innovation, said in a news release.
The tool is based on Nike’s Considered Index, the company's internal program used in developing innovations such as the 2010 World Cup soccer uniforms made completely from recycled polyester.
The Environmental Apparel Design Tool is a replication of the Considered Index’s functionality adapted for public use and made open source, with Nike encouraging users to find ways to improve it or make it applicable to industries other than apparel and footwear.
"By releasing the tool we want others to improve on it and we hope to inspire further collaboration to create global industry standards for a level playing field, encourage widespread industry adoption of sustainable design practices and have more sustainable products available for the consumer," Jones said.
It's designed to be simple.
Designers input data such as fabric types, how much of it is recycled material, and whether a garment is finished with any one of a list of treatments, from garment dyes to chemical washes.
The product is then given individual scores for the product’s material, garment treatments and waste. The final product score is based on a 70-point scale, with 70 being best and less than 30 denoting a product that needs improvement.
Throughout the process, the tool provides designers with alternative choices that can help their score.
"If you haven't made a good choice, you can see what a better choice would be," said Nike spokeswoman Kate Meyers.
The apparel design tool will precede similar tools for footwear design, material assessment and water assessment that are scheduled to be released sometime next year.
Nike’s tool is similar to the Eco Index program launched in September by the Outdoor Industry Association.
Much like Nike’s apparel design tool, the Eco Index — a project funded by the Portland Development Commission and administered by the Portland-based Zero Waste Alliance — is an open-source, Web-based tool to help designers make products more sustainably.
But Nike’s Meyers said the two projects have fundamental differences that make them complementary.
The Eco Index is much more elaborate sustainability tool, designed to gauge everything from the sourcing of materials to labor practices and packaging.
The Nike tool, by comparison, is far simpler interface focused solely on product design.
"Particularly in this space, we're looking at the whole idea of collaboration. It’s not competing at all with the Eco Index," Meyers said. "What we’d like to see in the future is our tool plus other things like the Eco Index starting to merge and mesh to create these global standards used universally across the industry."
esiemers@bizjournals.com | 502.219. 3418
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