Caring about the environment is hip these days, and Nike wants in.
Its new sustainability app “Making” is a tool that ranks materials used in the apparel industry based on four environmental impact factors: water, chemistry, energy and waste. The hope is that the app will encourage designers to keep sustainability in mind when designing.
“In 2015, the global apparel industry is expected to produce 400 billion square meters of fabric – enough to cover the state of California,” explained a Nike spokesperson. “We see this as a huge opportunity for Nike to have a positive impact and help designers invent better.”
(Nike has also in recent years demonstrated that exploitation of labor is another important issue in the apparel industry that is often, for obvious reasons, ignored by brands. But anyway, back to the environment.)
The Making app lets users directly compare different material choices to see which are the most environmentally friendly. For example, a designer can think about which raw materials she wants to use for a certain clothing design and then select these materials in the app to see how they rank against each other based on four environmental-impact categories.
To help designers with these decisions, the app pulls data from the Nike Materials Sustainability Index, or MSI. The MSI, as the Nike spokesperson explained, is a database that the shoe company created from over seven years of materials research and analysis that draws on the best publicly available information on materials. Nike initially created the MSI for Nike designers and product creators, but now the database is being made available to the public for the first time.
“What we’ve learned through this process is that sustainability doesn’t mean sacrificing performance,” said the Nike spokesperson. “In fact, when you start to look at design through the lens of sustainability, it can be an opportunity – an opportunity to strip away everything you don’t need and better design what you do.”
Image via Nike
More in Marketing
Digiday+ Research: The 2026 guide to holiday marketing strategies, including A-Frame Brands, Mastercard and Ritual
Shoppers continue to grapple with higher prices and affordability, while brands face rising operating costs and increased pressure to prove their marketing dollars are delivering measurable returns.
Inside the indie agencies founded by Omnicom and IPG’s former staffers
Thousands of media practitioners and creatives have left Omnicom since its merger with IPG. Some have already founded their own agencies.
Who owns the creative brief? Brands and creators are renegotiating the relationship
Brands are moving creators beyond sponsored posts and into the creative process, reshaping who influences marketing decisions.