The adidas Group presented its Environmental Strategy, a five-year plan to reengineer the company's approach to environmental management by focusing on significant improvements along the entire value chain. As part of the strategy, which was published together with the Group's 2010 Sustainability Report, the adidas Group is committed to using 100% Better Cotton by 2018.

The strategy is based on extending existing programmes to deliver process efficiencies at every stage of the value chain: from product design, development and sourcing to logistics, own sites and IT systems. As a result, the improved value chain enables the company to offer more sustainable products to consumers, thus improving the Group's environmental footprint.

One of the milestones included in the Environmental Strategy is the company’s commitment to using 40% Better Cotton by 2015 and 100% by 2018. The adidas Group co-founded the Better Cotton Initiative which aims to improve the environmental impact in the mainstream cotton industry. The primary focus is on reducing water consumption and pesticide use in cotton farming.

Another flagship initiative evolving from the strategy is called “Green Company” and looks at the own sites of the adidas Group. During 2010, the Group’s headquarters in Germany and five North American sites worked together to create a shared environmental management system, certified to ISO 14001. All certified locations are managed in accordance with the international management system standard which allows global target-setting and management at HQ as well as a standardized approach to day-to-day environmental management at site level.

The adidas Group is one of the global leaders within the sporting goods industry, offering a broad range of products around the core brands adidas, Reebok, TaylorMade, Rockport and Reebok-CCM Hockey. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the Group has more than 42,000 employees and generated sales of € 12 billion in 2010.