Sustainability rooted in our purpose Information

adidas’ purpose, ‘Through sport, we have the power to change lives,’ guides the way we run our company, how we work with our partners, create our products, and engage with our consumers. We will always strive to expand the limits of human possibilities, to include and unite people through sport, and to create a more sustainable world. We believe that acting as a responsible company will contribute to lasting economic success. However, achieving a truly sustainable business model is a marathon, not a sprint.

Sustainability rooted in our purpose

Our commitment to sustainability is embedded into how we have done business for over two decades. It is rooted in our purpose, ‘Through sport, we have the power to change lives.’ To underline this commitment, in 2021, we further sharpened our focus on sustainability and defined a roadmap for 2025 and beyond that allows us to create – and drive – positive impact. As we keep pioneering in sustainability and join forces with the industry and peers to drive systemic change, we will continue to move to a comprehensive, consumer-facing sustainable article offering at scale, evolve our approach to circularity, and work toward achieving climate neutrality (CO₂e) across our entire value chain. We will continue to empower our employees to become sustainability ambassadors, just as we invite our consumers globally to engage and connect with us on the topic of sustainability. Lastly, we also aim to uphold the highest standards in the area of social compliance across our supply chain. ADIDAS-GROUP.COM/SUSTAINABILITY

Governance

A robust governance structure ensures timely and direct execution of programs that drive the achievement of our set of targets for 2025 and beyond. The head of Sustainability reports directly to the member of the Executive Board responsible for Global Operations, who is responsible for the development, coordination, and execution of our environmental sustainability strategy and leads the Sustainability Sponsor Board (‘SSB’). The SSB is composed of senior representatives from different functions across the company and ensures cross-functional alignment, transparent end-to-end management, and execution of agreed-upon sustainability goals. We also maintain a separate compliance function which is operated as the Social and Environmental Affairs (‘SEA’) Team to monitor supplier-facing social and environmental compliance performance and human rights impacts, reporting to the CEO through the General Counsel. In 2022, we set up a cross-functional ‘ESG Regulation Board’ to ensure we stay well on track of upcoming regulation for management of environmental, social, and governance (‘ESG’) topics and disclosures. The sponsor for the ESG Regulation Board is also a member of the SSB to ensure best possible alignment between the two bodies. Notably, in 2023, various ESG progress updates were given to the Executive and Supervisory Boards. Ultimately, the variable compensation of the entire Executive Board has been linked to the ESG criterion ’Share of sustainable articles’ since 2021. SEE MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT OF PERFORMANCE, RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES, AND OUTLOOK ADIDAS-GROUP.COM/COMPENSATION

We have set up regular sustainability networking calls for all employees involved in sustainability projects and programs in the organization to ensure company-wide alignment on all levels. On top of this, adidas continued to offer the company-wide sustainability training program available to all employees, educating them on how to think and act sustainably, enabling them to become sustainability ambassadors, and encouraging everyone to make personal and professional commitments to contribute to a cleaner planet. We also updated the Green Ambassador training for our retail colleagues, now covering even more comprehensive sustainability content, and rolled it out with the objective of informing, engaging, and inspiring our entire team and all consumers around the globe that we interact with on a daily basis. In 2023, around 130 training sessions were delivered, attended by more than 1,000 retail employees worldwide.

Materiality

Throughout 2023, adidas monitored its non-financial topics that were identified through its 2022 full-scope materiality analysis. As a result of this monitoring process, the list of material topics has not changed compared to the previous year. The analysis in 2022 involved various internal stakeholders and was carried out taking two perspectives: an impact materiality perspective (inside-out) as well as a financial materiality perspective (outside-in), each of which was assessed both qualitatively and quantitatively.

For a list of all material topics, please refer to the non-financial statement. SEE NON-FINANCIAL STATEMENT

Stakeholder engagement

Engaging openly with stakeholders and establishing ways to increase transparency and disclosure has long been central to our approach, as has been securing feedback and acting on stakeholder concerns. This is indeed integral to our human rights and environmental impact due diligence activities and the shaping of our social and environmental strategies and plans. Our stakeholders are those people or organizations who affect or are affected by our operations, including our employees, consumers, suppliers and their workers, customers, investors, media, governments, and NGOs. We have guidelines that specify key principles for the development of stakeholder relations and detail the different forms of stakeholder engagement. adidas participates in a variety of industry associations, multi-stakeholder organizations, and non-profit initiatives. Through these memberships, we work closely with leading companies from different sectors to develop sustainable business approaches and debate social and environmental topics on a global, regional, and local level.

We use collaborations and partnerships to build leverage for systemic change in our industry, such as for efforts to mitigate the carbon footprint in our industry’s supply chain, to strengthen chemical management practices, and to raise social and environmental standards in the textile and footwear supply chain. In addition, we build awareness, capacity, and knowledge of laws and rights among factory management and workers by partnering with leading providers such as the International Labour Organization’s (‘ILO’) ‘Better Work’ program, as well as with the United Nations International Organization for Migration (‘IOM’) with the objective of ensuring that the labor rights of foreign and migrant workers are upheld in the adidas supply chain.

Key memberships:

• Apparel and Footwear International RSL Management (‘AFIRM’) working group
• Better Cotton (‘BC’)
• Fair Factories Clearinghouse (‘FFC’)
• Fair Labor Association (‘FLA’)
• Fashion for Good
• Federation of European Sporting Goods Industry (‘FESI’)
• German government-led Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (‘Textilbündnis’)
• Leather Working Group (‘LWG’)
• Organic Cotton Accelerator (‘OCA’)
• Textile Exchange
• The Fashion Pact
• The Microfibre Consortium (‘TMC’)
• The International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry
• United Nations Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action (‘UNFCCC’)
• World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (‘WFSGI’)
• Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (‘ZDHC’) Foundation

Transparency

We believe that transparent communication with our stakeholders on our sustainability ambitions and progress is critical. We use global reporting standards such as the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (‘GRI’) and the Sustainability Accountability Standards Board (‘SASB’) to inform our external non-financial reporting. We regularly disclose additional information to public-facing social and environmental benchmarks, such as the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, and reporting platforms, such as CDP, and publish important sustainability updates about our work throughout the year on our corporate channels, including our corporate website. A key element is the publication of our global supplier factory list, which is updated twice a year. In addition, we disclose the names of the factories of suppliers that process materials for our primary suppliers and subcontractors, where the majority of wet processes are carried out.

Over the last few years, we have placed particular emphasis on further evolving climate-related reporting beyond established disclosures, including CDP submissions, and have continued to stepwise include the ‘Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures’ (‘TCFD’) recommendations addressing the framework’s four thematic areas: governance, strategy, risk management, as well as metrics and targets. As part of our risk identification process, we monitor physical risks related to climate change as well as risks and opportunities resulting from the transition to a low-carbon economy. During 2023, we established a core team composed of experts from several business areas. Its objective is to start building more granularity to ensure high-quality data for more extensive external reporting for scenario analyses and setting up the base to support us to make informed business decisions – considering the medium- and long-term financial impacts of climate change across our value chain as well as the broader social and environmental impacts. SEE RISK AND OPPORTUNITY REPORT

External recognition

adidas continuously receives positive recognition from international institutions, rating agencies, NGOs, and socially responsible investment analysts for its holistic approach to managing sustainability. In 2023, adidas was again subject to comprehensive corporate ESG assessments and took part in focused thematic disclosure benchmarks for environmental or social performance. As a result, adidas was represented in a number of high-profile sustainability indices, ratings, and disclosure benchmark evaluations.

adidas maintained its leadership position for supply chain environmental performance and, in 2023, was awarded first place in the Corporate Information Transparency Index (‘CITI’) by the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (‘IPE’), acknowledging our efforts for improving environmental management and transparency for our supply chain in China.