How’s Nike Holding Up To Their People, Planet, and Play Goal (2024)?

These goals fall under three main areas: People, Planet, and Play. They cover everything from factory worker safety and fairness to fighting climate change and reducing waste.

But the real game is in the most complex, hard-to-control parts of their business: the supply chain. Fixing long working hours, addressing the decline in foundational compliance, and tackling the massive 6.9 million metric tons of upstream material carbon emissions are the monumental tasks that will define their next set of goals. They’ve shown they can sprint, but now they must finish the marathon and keep pushing for a truly sustainable future.

A Better Game for Workers

The People section of the report is all about the millions of hands involved in making the products, from the fabric mills to the assembly lines. It focuses on building a "Responsible Supply Chain". This isn’t just about making sure rules are followed; it’s about making sure people can thrive.

Leveling Up Worker Conditions

They are hitting major milestones in creating safer and fairer workplaces, getting incredibly close to their 2025 targets:

Safer Workplaces are the New Standard: The goal was to have 100% of strategic suppliers (the factories making most of the shoes and apparel) building safe and healthy workplaces. In FY24, they reached an astonishing 96% of suppliers achieving the top Level 3 health and safety maturity. Think of this like upgrading nearly all their key factories from basic to advanced safety certification—that’s a huge win for preventing accidents and protecting workers.

A Jump Toward Gender Equity: Another target was 100% of strategic suppliers having "gender-equitable" workplaces. This means making sure women and men have fair opportunities and treatment. In FY24, they reached 67% of suppliers achieving mature gender-equitable capability. Starting from 0% in FY21, making this leap shows serious commitment to fairness in the global workforce.

Worker Voices are Getting Louder: The goal to have 100% of strategic suppliers measuring and improving worker engagement hit 75%. This means three out of four key factories are actively listening to workers and trying to make their jobs better.

The Unfinished Business of Compliance

Even with these huge steps, some foundational issues remain stubborn challenges.

The Code of Conduct Dip: The number one rule is that 100% of their extended supply chain facilities must meet foundational labor, health, safety, and environmental standards. While Nike successfully measured compliance in 100% of the facilities in scope, the overall compliance rate with the Foundational Expectations was 87%.

The problem is this 87% is lower than the 94% compliance they started with back in the FY20 baseline. This is a "movement away from target" compared to the baseline, which signals that as they expanded their scope to include more types of factories (like Tier 2 material suppliers and Distribution Centers), they found more problems.

The Long Hours Problem (Especially in Shipping): The report breaks down where the non-compliance issues are most frequent. The absolute biggest single issue for Distribution Centers (the massive warehouses where product is sorted and shipped) is working hours, accounting for 48.5% of all non-compliance. Nearly half of the problems in their shipping centers are about people working too long. This is a clear, urgent challenge that needs fixing.

Factory Safety Gaps: For the Tier 1 (finished goods) and Tier 2 (materials) factories, the most frequent issues are related to Chemical Management, Occupational Health and Hygiene, and the overall safety of the Workplace and Building. This means that while management is trained, the day-to-day use of chemicals and the physical work environment still pose a major risk to workers.

Protecting the Environment

Crushing the Carbon and Material Goals

Nike has proven that when they focus on what they directly control or can influence with material choices, they can win big:

Clean Energy Victory at Home: Nike’s goal was a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their own facilities (offices, stores, headquarters) through 100% renewable electricity. They are essentially there, achieving a 69% reduction and reaching 96% renewable electricity in these owned and operated places. This shows a near-total shift away from fossil fuels in their corporate footprint.

An Overachiever in Green Materials: Nike’s target was to reduce 500,000 metric tons of carbon emissions by using more "environmentally preferred materials" (EPMs). EPMs are things like recycled polyester, organic cotton, and leather alternatives.

Not only did Nike hit this goal, they crushed it, achieving a massive 1.1 million metric tons of carbon emissions reduced. The percentage of EPMs used in products also reached 48%, nearly hitting the 50% target. This means that more than 1 in every 2 materials they use is a greener option.

The Giant Scope 3 Carbon Problem

When you look at the company's total emissions, a picture emerges of where the real problem lies:

Nike’s elephant in the room is the Supply Chain. Total emissions in FY24 were over 8.2 million metric tons of CO2e. But get this: nearly all of it—8.1 million metric tons—is in Scope 3.

Scope 3 emissions are the emissions from everything they don't directly own or operate—the making of the materials, the transportation, the final disposal of the shoe.

Within that massive Scope 3 total, the single biggest contributor is Purchased Goods and Services, which accounts for 6.9 million metric tons. This means the biggest pollution source isn't their offices or their jets; it’s the energy used to turn raw cotton into fabric, oil into plastic, and leather into shoe parts.

This is the toughest challenge because they don't own these factories, they just work with them. Decarbonizing this massive, fragmented supply chain is the most crucial, and hardest, part of their game plan.

Waste, Water, and Chemistry

The report also tracks progress on making and shipping products with less waste and less water pollution.

When it comes to efficiency, they’ve been very successful:

Less Waste Per Unit: They set a goal to reduce manufacturing, distribution, and headquarters waste by 10% per unit of product41. They not only met this target but exceeded it, achieving an 11% reduction. They are also successfully diverting 98% of their factory waste from landfills.

The Chemical Clean-Up is Halfway Done: They set a goal to find and adopt clean chemical alternatives for 10 "priority chemistries" (the worst chemicals they use)44. In FY24, they reported finding and adopting alternatives for 6 out of 10 of these chemicals. That’s major progress in reducing hazardous substances in the supply chain.

Target Hit on Textile Water Use: They achieved their goal of a 25% reduction in freshwater usage per kilogram of textile dyeing and finishing. Dyeing and finishing fabrics is a water-intensive process, so this is a crucial step in preserving a scarce resource.

Recycling Product and Restoring Water

The circular economy and large-scale environmental projects are proving difficult

The Unsold Product Problem: Nike’s goal is to collect and recycle, refurbish, or donate 10 times the amount of finished product waste (FPW) compared to the baseline. In FY24, they reached 5.4 times the baseline. While this is a huge increase in recycling unsold goods, they are still short of the 10x target.

Water Restoration Gap: To balance the water Nike uses, they committed to restoring 13 billion liters of water in water-stressed communities where they source cotton. In FY24, they restored 6.9 billion liters. While that is a huge amount, they are still over 6 billion liters short of their goal, meaning they need to double their water restoration efforts in the final year.