There are a lot of sports fans like myself. We are used to buying a lot of sportswear to protect our bodies and ensure the best performance of our exercises. We tend to trust the top brands and buy shoes, shirts, pants, etc. from them. But do we know how much greenhouse gases are emitted from producing, transporting, and selling these brand products? I don’t remember off the top of my head. So I decided to do some data analysis.
I researched these brands’ annual financial reports and impact/sustainability reports in the fiscal year 2021. Luckily, the fiscal year 2021 is the first year when these top brands below all caught up on their environmental responsibilities and started publishing complete greenhouse gas emission figures for scopes 1, 2, and 31. I have left out some brands that haven’t yet officially published their annual sustainability reports or complete emission data. Let’s give some credit to the brands below who have committed to transparency and taken steps to share their emission data with the public.
I also tried to correlate the plain CO2e emission data closely to our daily life. Imagine if I am the sole one responsible to accommodate all these CO2e emissions, what would be the impact on my life? Imagine all these CO2e have to be filled into refrigerators and we have to purchase and host all these refrigerators in our houses. Most of us don’t seriously consider the greenhouse gas issue because we feel it’s a big issue for the entire world population but not solely for myself. A typical scenario of “three monks have no water to drink2”.
A few assumptions were made to connect the dots. I assume that the greenhouse gas emission is evenly distributed into every dollar in revenue. The average price of a pair of sneakers is $100 in U.S. Dollars3. A medium-sized refrigerator for a family of 4 has a typical capacity of 20 cubic feet4. CO2’s density at average temperature is 1.98 kg per cubic meter5.
Learning from the analysis above, we found that Lululemon and PUMA are leading the way in unit CO2e emissions. Nike and Adidas need to catch up on this, though they also have the largest value chain to manage and correct. Under Armour is yet to become the largest sportswear brand but it already has the largest unit of CO2e emission. We urge Under Armour to put more effort into sustainability along with its high growth.
Put relative performance aside, I am astonished by the absolute scale of greenhouse gas emissions to produce sportswear. Are you still happy to buy a pair of new sneakers if you have to accommodate all these GHGs at your own house? I would have second thoughts.
Can we do something to improve the situation, even though each of us is just one individual consumer with little power? What if there is a platform where a large number of consumers can group together and collaborate with these big brands, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? I think together we can make a dent. Feel free to comment if you have any thoughts.
References
1. Scope 1, 2 & 3 greenhouse gas emission. United States Environmental Protection Agency
Daphne says "It's really awesome"; Lin says because it raises awareness of individual impact of our purchasing act".