Textile breakthrough can ‘protect the future of sport’, Nike says
The vice-president for apparel innovation at Nike, Janett Nichol, has said a new material the sports company has developed, Nike Forward, is “a game-changing platform” and that it has the potential to “protect the planet and the future of sport”.
Nike said that the textile material it is able to make using the new platform can offer a 75% reduction in carbon footprint compared to traditional knit fleece. It is using needle-punch technology to turn fibre into textiles directly, without the need for weaving or knitting.
The company said it had devoted five years of research to this project, culminating in a technique that it says “hacks into punch-needle machines” because it wanted to allay athletes’ concerns about climate change.
It said sportspeople around the world had told the company that “climate change is a barrier to sport”. Nike Forward responds to that concern, the sports group insisted, by creating a more sustainabile material from which it can make sports apparel.
A grey hoodie is the first Nike Forward garment the company has showcased. It contains no embellishments or dyes, has raw-cut pockets and, Nike has claimed, “zero water usage”.
It pointed out that the new material can be constructed from industrial and post-consumer waste, and can be “precisely tuned” to meet the needs of individual athletes. Vice-president for sustainable innovation, Seana Hannah, said Nike had wanted to offer “more sustainable options” as part of its commitment to athletes and to meet its own climate-change targets. She added that the company would go on to adapt the new material “to different lifestyle and performance purposes”.
