Sportswear manufacturer Nike Incorporated (Nike) has launched a new application (app) that compares different materials’ environmental footprints with the aim of ‘[leading] industry sustainability efforts and [providing] designers and product creators with guidance in selecting materials with lower environmental impacts’.

Created by Nike in association with students from London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, the MAKING app ranks 22 materials used in apparel by their environmental footprint (this number is expected to ‘evolve’; the next iteration of the app will include materials often used in footwear).

All materials are ranked with a ‘Material Score’ from 1-50 (the higher the score the better the environmental footprint), by looking at four environmental impact areas:

• chemistry (including carcinogenicity and chronic toxicity);
• energy/greenhouse gas intensity;
• water/land intensity; and
• physical waste (including recyclability and mineral content).

Users can choose to directly compare different materials through each of the categories or by looking at the ‘base material’ score as a whole. They can also change the base material to see the environmental footprint of recycled and organic counterparts, as well as how ‘choosing a better supplier with sustainable practices’ (based on water, energy, waste and toxic management programmes) can affect the score. For example, in the case of cotton, the score and overall rank is improved if materials are sorted through the organic filter.

Nike does acknowledge that there are a number of uncertainties to do with material productions, however; it specifically notes, for instance: ‘Because of the lack of consensus around a standard methodology for assessing chemistry, this impact area receives the lowest weighting in the base materials scores.'

Lee Holman, Nike VP of Apparel Design, said that the app was created to “empower any designer around the world to make better materials choices in the initial stages of the innovation process to ultimately create products that are better for consumers and better for the planet”.

Best and worst materials

Top of Nike’s list for least environmental impact is Down, which comes in with a rate of 37.5. According to the app, this material has the least energy/greenhouse gas intensity and the most organic content.

The material coming in at the bottom of the list is Spandex, which is the worst-performing material in terms of physical waste, and reportedly creates 158 per cent more waste than cotton.

Ranking system

In order to rank the materials, Nike draws on its Materials Sustainability Index (MSI), a ‘cradle-to-gate index informed by life cycle assessment (LCA) derived inventory data’, which utilises the same four principles of material sustainability.

Developed by Nike over the past eight years, the MSI was adapted by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) and incorporated into the Higg Index, a tool that measures the environmental and social performance of apparel and footwear products. It is hoped that the tool will ‘further empower collaboration and data transparency across the apparel and footwear industry’.

Hannah Jones, Nike VP of Sustainable Business and Innovation, added that the tool was one step to increasing the industry’s sustainability: “Today, more than ever, we believe that systems innovation, transparency and sharing of tools and indexes will propel business and society towards a more sustainable future.”

Industry reaction

The app has been largely welcomed by those in the design and sustainability sectors, with one of the students at London College of Fashion who used the app, Alasdair Leighton-Crawford, saying the tool was “incredibly insightful” during the design process, as it helped to identify materials that have lower environmental impacts, “without compromising the design process”.

Leighton-Crawford added: “MAKING shows that sustainability is not a limit, but an inspiring new way to look at product creation.”

Lifecycle app would have been ‘more significant’

Speaking to Resource, Jude Sherry, Project Officer and LCA expert at Cardiff Ecodesign Centre endorsed the app, adding that Nike’s promotion of free information was “amazing and refreshing”. However, Sherry warned that the app should not be used as a catch-all for sustainability: “The app considers the chemistry, energy and raw materials used, as well as the physical waste produced during the manufacturing stage of textiles, and it's a strong starting point. However the textile or fashion industry bear their most harmful environmental impacts when their products are being used by the customer, or the 'use stage'. An app that considers the full lifecycle of a product, from design to disposal, would have provided a much more significant guideline for the designers.

"That said, having a huge and influential corporation promoting this app is powerful and groundbreaking. Nike have just uncomplicated the complicated and that can only be a good thing."

The app comes amongst increasing focus on improving the sustainability of product manufacture in light of depleting resources, with Bradford University offering from this month, the ‘world’s first’ circular economy Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) degree.

MAKING is available to download free of charge from the Apple iTunes store.