Nike supplier standards
Setting clearer requirements on workplace heat stress
Climate-related workforce risk: Heat stress, dehydration, unsafe working temperatures and supplier production disruption
Solution pathway: Supplier standards, workplace heat-stress procedures, hydration, shade, rest, training and medical response
Business type: Large corporate / buyer-driven supply chain
Sector: Apparel, footwear and global manufacturing supply chains
Geography: Global supplier network
In practice
Nike’s Code Leadership Standards include requirements for facilities to manage heat-stress risks. These include access to drinking water, shade and recovery periods, safe temperature management, consideration of protective clothing, medical response procedures, and training for workers and supervisors to recognise and respond to heat-related illness.
This is not a single factory retrofit case study. It is better understood as a supply-chain governance example: a way for a large buyer to set expectations that suppliers must identify, reduce and manage heat risk in the workplace.
Why this example was selected
This case study was selected because Nike has been identified in independent climate and labour-risk reporting as one of the few major apparel and footwear brands with explicit supplier requirements on workplace heat stress. Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute’s Hot Air brief named Nike, alongside Levi’s and VF, as an exception among major brands for including measures such as access to shade or cooler environments, rest breaks during high temperatures and temperature thresholds for different types of work.
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre highlighted Nike among four companies with detailed public supplier guidance on heat stress, calling this an important and rare acknowledgement of climate change as an occupational health and safety issue. Cornell GLI and Schroders’ investor toolkit also uses Nike as an example of supplier expectations on heat stress.
This case study was selected because it shows how heat stress can be embedded into supplier standards and operational expectations. It is useful for businesses that do not directly own all production facilities but still depend on workers in climate-exposed manufacturing sites.
