adidas will generate about 131,000 tonnes of waste in 2026 (289 million pounds), from the offcuts and process waste at the factories that build their products plus the rubbish from their own offices and warehouses.
How much waste does adidas produce? Their own annual report no longer answers that. They stopped printing a tonnage after 2023, and the 2025 edition marks the two disclosures that would have carried one as not material.
adidas report that 95% of their enrolled suppliers' waste stayed out of landfill in 2025, against a target of 98%. They never report the size of the pile behind it, which we put at 131,000 tonnes in 2026.
How much waste adidas produce each year (2021-2026)
adidas publish no waste tonnage of their own, so the table below borrows a measuring stick from a rival who does.
That rival is PUMA, the other big sportswear company based in Herzogenaurach, the same German town as adidas. They outsource their manufacturing the same way and report under the same EU rules.
PUMA are the one to borrow from rather than Nike because they publish both halves of the sum, the tonnes of waste their factories and their own buildings threw away and the tonnes of material that went in.
Nike publish a waste tonnage but no material figure, so they come in later as a cross-check rather than as the basis.
| Year | Total waste (tonnes) | Change on prior year |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 131,000 | +10,000 (+8%) |
| 2025 | 121,000 | +18,000 (+17%) |
| 2024 | 103,000 | +9,000 (+10%) |
| 2023 | 94,000 | -4,000 (-4%) |
| 2022 | 98,000 | +5,000 (+5%) |
| 2021 | 93,000 | baseline |
Note: adidas publish no waste tonnage, so each year applies PUMA's 2025 ratio of waste to material used, 17.6 tonnes per 100, to the material adidas report. That puts 2025 at about 121,000 tonnes and 2026 at about 131,000.
The two most recent years rest on material adidas actually report. The earlier ones are carried back on their sales, because no material figures were published before 2024.
Why the 2025 row jumps
Part of that 17% is growth and part of it is counting. adidas' reported material rose 17.4% in 2025 while their sales rose 5% in euros and 10% at constant currency.
The 2025 report also rebuilt the table, moving synthetic rubber from 67,810 tonnes to 98,098 and dropping silica as its own line. So the row reads better as adidas counting more of their material than as their factories throwing away a fifth more.
The real figure is probably higher
The 131,000 tonnes is a cautious estimate rather than a worst case. The ratio it rests on counts the waste of 122 PUMA factories against the material flowing through 712 of them, which divides a small pile by a large one and lands low.
A low ratio applied to adidas gives a low answer, so the true figure is more likely to sit above 131,000 tonnes than below it.
Two other ways of scaling land either side. Nike are roughly twice adidas' size by sales, and scaling on sales rather than material puts adidas at about 140,000 tonnes on PUMA's figures and about 112,000 tonnes on Nike's published waste.
We use material because offcuts and packaging follow what goes through a factory, not what the goods sell for.
Inside adidas and the 279 factories they do not own
adidas design and sell sportswear rather than manufacture it, and their own report puts that plainly by saying they outsource almost 100% of production to independent manufacturing partners.
That matters here, because nearly all of the waste on this page is created in buildings adidas do not own.
Five numbers give the scale behind the tonnage.
- 123 manufacturing partners in 279 factories, more than three quarters of them in Asia.
- 24.8 billion euros of net sales in 2025, up 10% at constant currency, with footwear alone at 14.2 billion.
- 690,446 tonnes of material into products and packaging in 2025, up from 588,142 tonnes.
- 64,938 employees and 2,022 own stores, both up on 2024.
- A head office in Herzogenaurach in Germany, which puts adidas inside the European reporting rules their sustainability statement follows.
The head office and a factory outlet sit in the same small German town.
What adidas and their closest rivals actually publish
The gap between what adidas measure and what they print is why this page needs an estimate at all.
Their 2025 report carries a full material table, a recycled content share and a landfill diversion rate for enrolled suppliers. It carries no waste tonnage.
Two disclosures under the European resource-use standard would have supplied one, covering non-recycled waste and hazardous waste. Both are marked as not material in the report's own index of EU datapoints.
Waste itself has not left their assessment. It is still there as an upstream risk over the medium term, with stricter waste rules named as a cost their suppliers may face.
Their two closest rivals handle the same standard differently.
| Company | Total waste | Own sites |
|---|---|---|
| adidas | none | none since 2023 |
| PUMA | 41,169 | 5,502 |
| Nike | 205,079 | 47,017 |
Note: All figures are tonnes of waste. PUMA's are for 2025 and Nike's for the year to May 2024, and adidas last printed an own-site tonnage for 2023, at 26,382 tonnes.
The gap between the two columns is the factory half, 35,667 tonnes for PUMA and 158,062 tonnes for Nike, and adidas publish no figure for either. PUMA are also the only one of the three to say how much went to landfill, at 1,088 tonnes.
PUMA are the closest thing adidas have to a like-for-like comparison, which is why their numbers carry the estimate here. Their 41,169 tonnes of waste sit against 234,217 tonnes of material, or 17.6 tonnes of waste per 100 tonnes of material.
Where adidas' waste comes from material by material
Almost all of the tonnage starts as material bought to become a product, and the heavier the material the more of it ends up on the cutting-room floor. Two thirds of what adidas buy is synthetic.
| Technical material | Tonnes in 2025 | Share of all material |
|---|---|---|
| Polyester | 156,917 | 23% |
| Other technical materials | 107,049 | 16% |
| Synthetic rubber | 98,098 | 14% |
| EVA foam | 51,751 | 7% |
| Polyurethane | 20,395 | 3% |
| All technical materials | 434,210 | 63% |
Note: From adidas' 2025 material table. Other technical materials is their own line and holds polyamide, silica and the smaller synthetics.
The remaining third is biological and it is dominated by packaging. Paper and cardboard alone came to 145,655 tonnes, ahead of cotton at 64,505 tonnes, leather at 31,304 tonnes and natural rubber at 10,896 tonnes.
Four things about that mix explain most of the waste.
- Fabric becomes offcuts before the garment exists. Apparel is cut from rolls, so whatever falls outside the pattern is textile waste already. PUMA name cutting as the main source of material waste in their own supply chain.
- Soles leave the edge of the sheet behind. Rubber, foam and polyurethane came to 181,140 tonnes in 2025, the heaviest block in the mix, and every moulded sole leaves trim around it.
- The total grows faster than the mix improves. Recycled material went from 42% to 43% of everything adidas used in 2025 while the amount used rose 17%, so the tonnage grew anyway.
- Almost none of it can come back. adidas state that they cannot claim recyclability for their products, and that there is no established process for treating textile waste in the EU.
Packaging is the part that becomes waste first
A shoebox lasts about as long as it takes to get the shoes home, so packaging is the fastest-moving waste adidas create. It is also the one part of the pile that somebody already invoices them for.
Their 2025 report gives 145,655 tonnes of paper and cardboard, which is almost all packaging, the shoeboxes and the corrugated cardboard cartons the shoes ship in.
| Packaging in 2025 | Tonnes |
|---|---|
| Paper and cardboard | 145,655 |
| Plastic | about 4,500 |
| All packaging | about 150,000 |
Note: adidas report the paper and cardboard line and say packaging is 97% paper-based, so the other two follow from their own figures. In 2024 they published the total outright, at 131,915 tonnes.
That makes 2025 about 14% more packaging than the year before.
The bill that follows the tonnage
A sustainability report can round a number. A producer responsibility return cannot, because the fee is charged per tonne and per material on everything a company puts on the market.
Packaging fees already apply across Europe, and producer responsibility rules for textiles are being built on top of them. adidas will pay on both, and their home market is one of those still building its scheme, so textile producer responsibility in Germany has not fully landed yet.
The content is better than the volume
adidas do better on what their packaging is made of than on how much of it there is. 85% of the paper carries recycled content, and 98% of the plastic is recycled polyethylene, up from 83% the year before.
Reusable transport packaging is the initiative they name. It is in place at several distribution centres, and they add that they cannot yet report what it saves.
The waste figure adidas stopped publishing
adidas did put a waste tonnage in print up to the 2023 reporting year, for one slice of the business.
| Year | Own site waste (tonnes) | Kept out of landfill |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 26,382 | 89% |
| 2022 | 32,246 | 88% |
| 2021 | 32,951 | 92% |
Note: adidas' own figures for their administrative offices and distribution centres, published in the 2022 and 2023 annual reports and not since. Coverage rose over the same stretch, from 74% of those sites by floor area in 2021 to 98% in 2023.
adidas tie the movement here to their data work rather than to less rubbish, and both reports say that collecting better figures produced higher data quality and a lower diversion rate. Note that the tonnage fell while the net was getting wider.
The sites in that count are offices and warehouses rather than factories.
That slice was also the small one, because PUMA, who publish both halves, throw away more than six times as much in their upstream factories as in their own buildings. The factories where adidas' waste actually happens have never had a tonnage at all.
Missed targets and rising emissions at adidas
Four material and waste targets sit in the summary box of adidas' 2025 report. One of them is about waste, and it is the one they missed.
| Target | Due | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Third-party certified cotton | 2018 | 100% |
| Recycled polyester where possible | 2024 | 99% |
| Supplier waste kept out of landfill | 2025 | 95% against 98% |
| Polyester from recycled textile waste | 2030 | first products due 2026 |
Note: From adidas' 2025 targets table. adidas describe all four as voluntary and not mandated by law.
The one target with a tonnage behind it
95% of the waste from enrolled first-tier and second-tier suppliers stayed out of landfill in 2025, against the 98% adidas set themselves in 2021. They explain the slip as growth, saying the change from the previous year's 96% reflects new suppliers joining and adding complexity.
Two things limit what that number can tell a reader. It is a rate rather than a tonnage, and it covers enrolled suppliers rather than all of them.
Emissions moved the other way
Their supply-chain emissions rose 19% in 2025, from 5.25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to 6.24 million. They have committed to cutting that figure 42% below its 2022 level by 2030, and it currently sits 5.2% below it.
Emissions from adidas' own operations are about 2% of the total and barely moved, up 1% to 187,591 tonnes.
The circular programmes that wound down
Made To Be Remade was adidas' answer to end-of-life, starting with the Futurecraft.Loop running shoe in 2019 and growing into a collection by 2023.
In 2025 they moved on from it, saying circular services need collaboration across the value chain, and backed industry-wide work instead, chiefly the T-REX project on textile-to-textile recycling.
The take-back pilots went the same way. After a decade of in-store sneaker cleaning, rental and product take-back, adidas concluded that a global approach is not practical because consumer expectations vary by market, and handed the choice to local teams.
Frequently asked questions about adidas' waste
Below are the questions readers ask most about adidas and waste, answered from the company's own published figures wherever those exist.
How much waste does adidas produce each year?
About 121,000 tonnes in 2025 and an estimated 131,000 tonnes in 2026. The figure covers factory and own-site waste from making, packing and moving adidas products, and it is an estimate because adidas publish no waste tonnage.
Does adidas publish a total waste figure?
No. Their 2024 and 2025 annual reports contain no waste tonnage at all, and the two waste disclosures under the European resource-use standard are marked as not material. They last printed a tonnage for 2023.
What kind of waste does adidas produce most of?
Offcuts and process waste from the material their factories cut and mould. Polyester at 156,917 tonnes and rubber, foam and polyurethane at 181,140 tonnes are the heaviest inputs, so they dominate what gets thrown away.
How much packaging does adidas put on the market?
About 150,000 tonnes in 2025, derived from the 145,655 tonnes of paper and cardboard they report and their own statement that packaging is 97% paper-based. In 2024 they published the figure outright at 131,915 tonnes.
Did adidas meet their 2025 waste target?
No. They reached 95% of supplier waste kept out of landfill against a target of 98% set in 2021. adidas attribute the shortfall to new suppliers joining the programme and adding complexity.
How does adidas compare with Nike and PUMA on waste?
Both rivals publish a tonnage and adidas do not. PUMA reported 41,169 tonnes for 2025 and Nike 205,079 tonnes for the year to May 2024, while adidas report only a diversion rate.
Why is adidas' waste rising if they use more recycled material?
Because the recycled share and the total move independently. Recycled material went from 42% to 43% of the mix in 2025 while the total material used rose 17%, so the absolute tonnage grew.
How do we estimate adidas' waste?
By applying PUMA's ratio of waste to material used, 17.6 tonnes per 100, to the material adidas report. PUMA sit in the same town, outsource the same way and report under the same standard.
Images: Avda, Steven Haslington
