adidas reacts on Greenpeace challenge ‘to act upon its Detox commitment and rid its supply chain of hazardous, toxic monsters’.
On a statement sent to Orange Magazine, adidas said:
As a responsible company, the adidas Group is committed to managing and reducing the environmental impact as much as possible and to ensuring that our products are environmentally friendly and do not cause any harm to the consumer.
A comprehensive overview of our activities and achievements in recent years in the field of chemicals management is available on our website.
We have carefully checked the results of the latest report by Greenpeace “A Little Story About the Monsters in Your Closet”. The results and concentrations listed fully meet legal requirements and thus do not cause any health risks.
According to the report, the concentrations of PFOAs in a children’s bathing suit exceed our own guidance. We explicitly point out that wearing the product does not cause any health risks. The tested product fully complies with all applicable international legal requirements. However, we will take the results published by Greenpeace as an opportunity to have the materials verified by an independent test institute again.
The tested children’s swimsuit was available in the spring/summer 2013 collection. Since the fall of 2013, this product is no longer sold.
In a 2008 study, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment commented that the health risks of PFOs and PFOAs in food are unlikely according to current knowledge (see report in German. However, it recommends taking measures to reduce and avoid them.
Therefore, it is our goal to phase out the use of all C8 compounds (long-chain perfluorinated chemicals) from our products by no later than January 1, 2015. Regarding adidas leisure clothing, we have already completely eliminated the use of C8 compounds for our fall/winter collection 2014.
For continued reduction and elimination of substances classified as questionable chemical substances in our products and their manufacturing process, we work closely with material suppliers and representatives of the chemical industry and are committed to promote environmentally sound and technically feasible solutions in the industry.
We are concerned about the manipulative reporting of Greenpeace, as they on purpose report about additional chemicals which were not even found in the products. This wrongly suggests that the tested products pose a health hazard to the consumer. This approach lacks any scientifically sound basis.