Question

Analyze and explain briefly the efficacy of Nike's 'Considered' footwear index scoring system.   

Answer 1

Efficacy of Nike's 'Considered' footwear index scoring system:
?What does it mean to be Considered? It’s not enough to just put in recycled material. When you start from a blank page it’s really tricky because you need to integrate all the different dilemmas of what it means to be Considered into one. We need to find one design that meets all our products’ goals. But when you see all the elements connected to Considered, it’s not only in the product but also in the lifecycle. You can become crazy questioning yourself, wondering if the job you’re doing is good or bad!

In 2005, the Considered Group began to develop a holistic, predictive way to score products at different intervals throughout the development process. The Considered Group was surprised by how difficult it was to create usable metrics for the product teams. After 18 months of extensive work by six people on the tools team, the Considered Index was introduced in September 2007.

The goal of the Index was to create predictive metrics that would work uniformly across Nike’s varied footwear line. This led to eliminating absolute measurements, like grams of waste per pair of shoes as an indicator, which proved to be a flawed metric. A men’s basketball shoe, for example, would almost always score worse than a kid’s shoe on absolute measures due to size disparity.

Meanwhile, trying to compare the impact of each shoe while taking size differences into account was a slow and complicated process. The tools team instead looked for intuitive proxies in the product process that was “85% right” and “pointed teams in the right direction.” However, as one team member noted, the complexity involved in making the Index’s scoring decisions made them contestable.

The Index evaluated a product’s bill of materials (BOM), a roster of all materials specifications for a shoe’s components, using Nike’s Materials Assessment Tool, an abbreviated life cycle analysis for raw materials. The Index scored environmentally preferred materials (EPMs) on multiple criteria including toxic hazard, energy and water usage, recycled content, recyclability, and other supply chain responsibility issues. For example, organic cotton received a higher material score, while regular cotton scored lower. The Index awarded points for each unique EPM in the shoe and then divided the total points by the shoe’s number of unique materials. For example, a shoe garnering 5 EPM points with 10 unique materials would earn a .5 rating, but with 15 unique materials it would rate as .33

The Index evaluated solvent usage by scoring shoes on their least environmentally-friendly bonding option. Mechanical bonds ranked first, followed by water-based cement bonds, then solvent-based cement bonds. Cemented bonds were further evaluated on whether they used water or solvents to wash, prime, and cement. Bonds using solvent washes scored better than ones with solvent washes and priming; all-solvent chemistry was penalized.

The waste score was determined primarily by the midsole construction process and pattern efficiency. The scores for these areas were weighted according to their known contribution to Nike’s waste stream. For example, pattern efficiency was 60% of the total score, since production processes related to cutting upper materials accounted for approximately 60% of the footwear waste stream. The Index graded standard process options on footprint impacts and awarded points to increasingly efficient patterns. Shoes with single material sockliners or without sock liners - the foam pads sitting directly underneath the foot – and those that reduced or reused tooling earned points, while points were docked for wasteful ultrasonic welding and autoclaving, an energy- and solvent-intensive process.

However, there were a number of metrics that were not incorporated into the Index. For example, the team could not identify suitable predictive metrics for outsole construction and dropped formal assessment of the energy footprint of midsole construction pending completion of ongoing energy mapping studies.

As a learning and motivation tool for Nike’s product teams, the Index included a “Change Agent” category. Teams could win points for up to three new significant footprint-reducing product or process ideas, such as a new way of attaching a midsole or eliminating solvent use. Lesser awards were also given to teams that adopted other teams’ recent innovations. A product’s overall rating was determined by calculating combined scores for materials, solvents, and waste – maximum scores in each category carried roughly the same weight – and adding innovation points. The Index was carefully calibrated to reward only those products that performed above Nike’s historical averages, with Bronze representing baseline sustainability and Silver and Gold both qualifying as “Considered”; the distinction was purely internal. The Considered Group planned to toughen the Index’s scoring over time. As one manager noted, “The intention is that we just keep raising the bar. As we do, business units will have to improve.” The Index ran on an intranet calculator. Product teams could self-score their products in a minute by entering their product’s BOM number and clicking checkboxes for design and process options. While teams scored their product at the end of the development process to receive an official Considered rating, many product teams used the Index at interim product gates.

The Considered Group provided training to product teams on how to use the Index. It also built a network of Considered “super-users” who served as internal category experts on Considered questions and provided feedback to the Considered Group. Through super-users, the Group would provide updates on noteworthy examples of Considered implementation and innovation. Visible leadership from Parker in the CEO’s chair helped fuel the groundswell of the Considered movement for change within Nike’s design community. Nike publicly committed that 100% of its footwear in Spring 2011 would meet a minimum Considered standard, established as Bronze after finalizing the Index.22,23 As Vogel explained, “CEO Mark Parker believes that sustainability is the future of Nike.’” While corporate leadership held categories accountable for achieving Considered targets, there was considerable variation in how quickly different groups integrated the Considered Index and how they operationalized the tool. The Core Performance (CP) category’s successful implementation allowed its entire product line to be Silver-rated by Summer 2009. Nonetheless, CP and other units within Nike experienced many challenges with Considered implementation.