Nike Officially Mooves Away From the Amazon

Nike has been in the news in recent weeks for all the wrong reasons. They mishandled LeBrongate (our own David Jenison covered the story). Then, earlier this week, two different videos of the dunking-on surfaced, followed by a report today that Nike is returning the videotapes, claiming the confiscation was never about what happened to King James. Interesting timing.

So let's shine some positive light on Nike, shall we? Earlier this week, the company announced that it's creating a policy to stop buying leather from cattle raised in the Amazon Biome (the rain forest and its ecosystem) and will have suppliers create leather tracing systems. According to the article, Nike said it already has stopped sourcing from that area, but this is putting an official policy behind it, which is always welcome. You can read the policy here.

This comes on the hooves, pardon the pun, of a recent Greenpeace report, "Slaughtering the Amazon," that mentions a connection between deforestation and the supply chains for many shoe companies. And, according to Greenpeace, Brazil's cattle industry is responsible for 80 percent of the Amazon's deforested areas.

Nike currently has three leather suppliers sourcing hides from Brazil, and those suppliers will have until July 1, 2010, to create a system that makes certain their leather comes from areas outside the rainforest.

Now if they could only get guarantees that LeBron won't get dunked on again.