Comparing Carbon Footprints of Nike and Timberland Shoe Companies

Our group is interested in comparing the carbon footprints of two major clothing brands, Nike and Timberland. For comparison, we used statistics provided by the companies through their public Responsibility Reports. These Responsibility Reports have been reviewed by reliable third party committees.

We found that Americans purchase on average 8 pairs of shoes every year. This translates to about 7,142,094,187 CO2 tonnes released into the atmosphere every year, in addition to the rest of the world’s population. Click “see the math” on the left menu bar for the calculations.

In relation to Nike and Timberland, we are interested on investigating their impact on the world. Their global dominance and fast business rates are sure to have large carbon footprints; and our project is aimed at calculating their total impact. We also worked to investigate the carbon emissions per shoe in order to learn of each company’s efficiency. As shoes are a basic necessity for modern life, it is satisfying to learn of their environmental effect.

To calculate the carbon footprint emitted from shoes purchased in the United States, we used our population of 304,696,851, as of July 26, 2008. 8 pairs of shoes per person is described in the report by the American Apparel and Footwear Association. Each shoe manufactured emits about 2.93 CO2 tonnes

Population In the United States: 304,696,851

Average Shoes per person per year: x 8

CO2 emitted per pair: x 2.93

Grand Total of CO2 due to shoes in US: =7,142,094,187

During our research, we found that Timberland and Nike had both published their complete responsibility reports. This made them simple to compare. However, these reports are the year 2005, so the information is to be used solely as a comparison and not an updated reference.

Nike reported 1.