Together, the adidas Group and Parley for the Oceans will implement a long-term partnership programme based on three pillars: Communication and Education, Research and Innovation. Direct Actions against ocean plastic pollution are also in the pipeline.

The partnership is an example of the adidas Group’s open-source innovation approach, to engage with partners, crowd-source ideas and co-create the future of the industry. The company believes that this collaboration will incentivize the creation of innovative products and integration of materials made of ocean plastic waste into the product offer of the adidas brand as of 2016.

Eric Liedtke, adidas Group Executive Board member responsible for Global Brands stated: “The conservation of the oceans is a cause that is close to my heart and those of many employees at the adidas Group. By partnering with Parley for the Oceans we are contributing to a great environmental cause. We co-create fabrics made from Ocean Plastic waste which we will integrate into our product”.

According to estimates by Science, a leading journal of scientific research, 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean.

adidas believes that this collaboration will also further strengthen the company’s ties with its consumers by allowing them to be “part of the solution via retail and future activations”. The partnership now announced is part of Adidas’ growing commitment to sustainability, which it outlined in its 2014 Sustainability Progress Report. As a first action, the adidas Group has also decided to phase out the use of plastic bags in its own retail stores.

“In 2014 we brought sustainability to our own stores when we introduced our first 'green' retail concept in our HomeCourt store in Nuremberg, Germany. The partnership with Parley for the Oceans has already led us to reassess some of our business practices. Stopping the use of plastic bags in our stores is a primary example of this and the right thing to do”, stated Frank Henke, adidas Group Vice President for Global Social and Environmental Affairs.