New Nike CEO: ‘Climate change is impacting sport’

Nike’s new CEO, John Donahoe, talked about climate change and sustainability on CNBC’s Closing Bell, and what the sports giant is doing to reduce emissions and promote sustainability.

Nike will be dressing its 2020 Olympic athletes in uniforms and athletic shoes made of recycled polyester and ground-up shoe parts. The company unveiled the US basketball, skateboarding, track and field, and soccer uniforms yesterday.

Donahoe, who was CEO of ServiceNow, and CEO of eBay before that, told CNBC’s Sara Eisen:

Climate change is impacting sport. In fact, Tokyo is likely to be the warmest Olympics on record. And so our athletes care about this topic. And so Nike is investing heavily in sustainability. And you’re going to see some incredible products unveiled [yesterday, at its Summer 2020 Collaborations].

And so, for instance, all the Olympic US athletes will be wearing a Nike jacket and Nike pants that are made of 100% recycled materials. Nike is one of the largest recyclers of polyester in the world, over a billion plastic bottles are recycled each year into NBA jerseys, or the jerseys that the women’s US soccer team wore last year in the World Cup, so the investment and commitment to innovating in a sustainable way is something that matters to our athletes, and it matters to Nike.

When asked how he sees consumer habits changing as a result of sustainability, Donahoe replied:

The consumer increasingly cares about sustainability. And so they’re looking to companies like Nike to lead on this dimension. Therefore we’re stepping in with significant investment. The Space Hippie shoe… is the most sustainable shoe that’s been created, and it’s simply the first in what’s gonna be a series of significant investments in building sustainable product for our consumers and for our globe.

Check out this video about the new Nike Space Hippie shoe — which is made out of trash — below, and how sustainability drove its design:

Last September, Nike announced in its Move to Zero initiative that it would power its owned-and-operated facilities with 100% green energy by 2025 and reduce emissions across its global supply chain by 30% by 2030, in accordance with the Paris Agreement.