Nike, the world’s largest sportswear manufacturer, plans to make data relating to the sustainability of its operations publicly available via the web.
In a recruitment ad for an open data “fellow” to lead the programme, the company said it is looking for someone with “the skills, passion and know-how to use data and technology to solve problems standing between business-as-usual and a sustainable future”.
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“The fellow will help Nike determine the steps needed to open our sustainability data to communities of data-obsessed programmers, visual designers and researchers,” the ad reads.
The successful candidate will be responsible for “the creation of prototypes that demonstrate how opening Nike’s sustainability data can be a force to drive change.”
The ad does not specify what constitutes ‘sustainability data’. However, in a corporate social responsibility report published last year, the company acknowledged that the working conditions in the factories where its trainers are made is a key sustainability issue.
The report, which outlined its CSR activities from 2007 to 2009, described transparency as “a central component to a responsible business strategy”. It said it was working with suppliers to make their supply chain operations, the factories they use and the working practices at those factories more transparent.
