Nike closes FY19 with 25% freshwater reduction

3 min readSep 25, 2020

Wastage of 3% freshwater for washing, dyeing & finishing textile industry {WDF}, results marginal increase of freshwater consumption from 100 to 300 cubic meters of water per ton[1];p11a. It is estimated that for 60–70 million tons of annual global textile production, freshwater requirement of 9 billion cubic meters is expected as per studies[2];p11b.

The UN report talks about the steep rise in freshwater scarcity globally due to the absence of effective license policy over commercial corporations[3];p36.

Considering this as a global issue, U.S. apparel giant, Nike has remarkably done well in 2019 by trimming 25% wastewater quality in its supply chains with the deployment of Water Minimum Program from 2017–18[4];p53. With being spread across 41 countries, Nike aims to reach its goal of water footprint reduction of 20% by 2020[5];p6 through its efficiency programs & sustainable sourcing[6];p6.

To espouse towards sustainability, the company has avoided 23 billion liters of freshwater wastage from its materials vendors present at developing countries, since 2016[7];p7. Nike ensured 25% reduction in 2019 for its fabric supply vendors utilizing only an average of 94.3 litres of fresh water per kilogram (L/kg) [8]

In 2018, one of Nike’s vendor, Vertical Knits in Mexico which primarily dyes cotton fabric, adopted Nike’s Minimum Water Program. The impact of this initiative was by installation of a 50% wastewater recycling system and invested in manufacturing efficiency, resulted in 70% reduction of their freshwater withdrawals[9];p51. By the end of FY18, Nike avoided a cumulative 8.7 billion liters of fresh water in comparative to 2.5 billion liters of FY16 baseline[10];p51.

Similarly, in 2019, one of Nike’s dyeing and finishing manufacturing vendor in Suzhou, China installed state of the art wastewater treatment technology. It resulted in cleaner than regulations required, which was easy and cost-effective to install, with 60% reduction in freshwater use and compliance with the industry standards of wastewater discharges[11];p54.

Nike ensures rapid adoption of new practices and shared practices are the hallmark of Nike’s work towards freshwater reduction. Throughout all these initiatives, Nike company’s ColorDry technology since 2010, focuses on dyes fabric using zero water, which has saved 20 million liters of water[12].

With these initiatives, Nike was able to “reduce water use by 18% per unit in apparel materials and 43% per unit in footwear manufacturing,” far surpassing its goals for 2015[13]. All these efforts deliver a message to other industries to focus on attaining their SDGs