Do we like Nike?
Designs and sells sportswear, shoes and gear under Nike, Jordan and Converse-era brands; based in Beaverton, Oregon, USA.
Our score: 4 out of 10. Mixed. Strong climate targets, but long-running factory pay and conditions complaints and a 2026 jury finding of pay bias keep us from happily backing them.
Nike is a giant sportswear firm run from Beaverton, Oregon. Its CEO is Elliott Hill, who joined in 1988, retired in 2020 and came back as CEO in 2024. Mark Parker, the former CEO, is still Executive Chairman. It's a listed company, and its latest full-year revenue was $46.4bn, flat on the year.
The sweatshop reputation goes back to the 1990s. In 2003 Nike paid $1.5m to settle a false-advertising case over what it said about its workers' treatment. More recently, ProPublica reported workers fainting at a Cambodian supplier of Nike goods. It also said Nike has shifted production within Indonesia towards lower-wage regions, which Ethical Consumer repeated.
At home, a federal jury in Portland found Nike willfully broke equal pay law and awarded a former engineer at least $7.5m in punitive damages. The case grew out of a 2018 suit that followed a New York Times investigation into the male-dominated culture at HQ. Nike also paid $8.25m to settle a store-worker bag-check pay case.
On climate, Nike set science-based targets in 2019 to cut its own emissions 65% and its supply-chain emissions 30% by 2030. Its proxy statement reports a 69% cut in its own operations' emissions in FY24. A shareholder proposal criticised it for skipping a full sustainability report in 2025. The big supply-chain target is the hard part.
We land at 4 out of 10. Nike has real climate goals and it's open to outside audits. But the pay and conditions complaints keep coming, and the equal-pay verdict is a recent black mark. We'd want to see worker pay fixed before we'd back it.