Nike launches iPhone app to score sustainability of its products

Sportswear brand Nike has launched a new app for iPhones called Making, which allows users to check the environmental impact of the materials used in its products.

Amid the launch of a new recycled shirt for Italian football champions Juventus, Nike’s green app shows how different materials, such as cotton, lyocell and polyester, score in terms of energy use, water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and recyclability.

The app is the result of years of cataloguing Nike’s materials, which formed the Materials Sustainability Index (MSI). The firm says the Making app is the most immediate tool for consumers to assess if a product is environmentally friendly.

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Nike has moved on a path of sustainability in recent years, after receiving fierce criticism on several occasions in the 90s for allegedly abusing workers’ rights, particularly in the developing world.

The company is currently a member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, an industry group aimed at “[reducing] the environmental and social impacts of apparel and footwear products around the world”.

It joined other big brands in May to work with the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, in an effort to educate consumers about the sustainability of products.

Researchers from from Nottingham Trent University announced the development of a similar app in June, which would measure the environmental footprint of various products.

Further reading:

Want to find out the ecological cost of a product? There’s an app for that

Fashion industry and US college team up for sustainability

Ethical consumer market grows to £47bn despite recession

The Guide to Ethical Shopping 2012

The Guide to Fair Trade 2013