Biodiversity and Water Management
Resource efficiency improvement
Safeguarding biodiversity and water
Climate change has affected the world’s ecosystems, causing the loss of local species and increased diseases. With declining biodiversity, less carbon will be stored in nature, which in turn will drive climate change. Therefore, these two issues should be tackled in parallel.
The overall apparel and footwear industry is regarded as one of the industries with the biggest effect on biodiversity, due to sourcing natural resources like cotton and leather, consuming a lot of water in the textile dying process, and releasing microplastics into nature.
At ASICS, we recognize the role our business plays in this, and we take our responsibility to preserve biodiversity seriously.
We also need to better understand our impact on biodiversity, therefore will continue to investigate this and develop action plans using the AR3T framework provided by SBT for Nature.
Biodiversity policy
Our biodiversity policy outlines the relationship between our business and biodiversity in areas such as sourcing natural resources, consuming water, and dyeing textiles. This policy is part of our Global Policy on Environment.
As a member of the Leather Working Group (LWG) and one of the signatories of The Fashion Pact, ASICS supports zero deforestation and sustainable forest management. ASICS supports the LWG towards their aim to achieve 100% conversion-free and deforestation-free leather by 2030. We are also working to reduce our negative impact on biodiversity through product development, by sourcing recycled materials for products and packaging, and using technology to lower water consumption.
We use SBT for Nature's Action Framework (AR3T), covering actions to avoid future impacts, reduce current impacts, regenerate and restore ecosystems, and
transform the current systems. This allows us to plan for and address ASICS’ impacts on biodiversity at a project level.
Managing our waste
The materials that are used to make ASICS products account for most of our waste-related impacts throughout the value chain, from material loss during manufacture to disposal at end-of-life. Our approach to waste remains the same: the waste generated by our direct operations is managed by a third party that meets our standards, as evidenced by regular checks of their certificates and legally required documents. We collect data and monitor our waste using a cloud-based database.
Collaboration is a key element of our waste reduction efforts. By working with partners like FastFeetGrinded, we can increase the proportion of our products that are reused or recycled. Four of our sites – two distribution centers and two factories – are responsible for more than three-quarters of the waste we currently send to landfill or incineration. These sites remain central to our global efforts to reduce waste.
Mitigating our water impacts
The overconsumption of water and pollution of water sources can both lead to biodiversity loss, so our approach to minimizing our water impact also mitigates ASICS’ impact on biodiversity. We engage with our stakeholders throughout
the value chain on water in the context of our material topic Biodiversity and Water Management.
As a global company, some of the areas in which we operate experience water scarcity. Our water use is unavoidable, but we can and do take action to reduce our consumption of water and manage our wastewater. The water used in our
direct operations largely comes from municipal sources.
Measuring and monitoring our water consumption and effluent waste is an important aspect of our approach to managing this topic. We monitor the impact of ASICS facilities through our data management system, and we collect water
consumption volume annually from Tier 1 footwear suppliers via Higg FEM, which shows data broken down into freshwater and other water from areas with water stress.
Innovating to reduce water use
Innovating to reduce water use We mitigate our water impacts by replacing equipment with water-efficient equipment when we build, renovate, or relocate, and by encouraging our employees to save water.
Apparel production can be water-intensive, so to reduce our water use, ASICS is switching to dyeing technologies that require less water.
The Solution Dyeing technique can reduce the amount of wastewater produced during apparel production and dyeing processes. This saves approximately 33% of water compared to regular dyeing methods.