Nike's Private Jet Travels Generate Pollution
Image via Flight Club
"The pollution from Nike's jets adds up. Last year, they generated roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide as a passenger car driving 10.9 million miles...(Imagine driving a car around the equator 438 times.) It was roughly equal to the amount of carbon pollution that would be released by burning 4.7 million pounds of coal."
Over the past few months ProPublica in partnership with the Oregonian has published several articles on the adverse environmental impacts of Nike corporate and recreational jet flights. As noted in the article, "Traveling by private jet is far more polluting than flying commercial." A quote by Phillip Ansell, director of the Center for Sustainable Aviation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign explains that, "a fully loaded Gulfstream G650ER flight releases about 4.5 times as much carbon dioxide per passenger as a Boeing 737, the workhorse commercial airplane. If the Gulfstream is carrying only a single passenger, it's about 80 times as polluting, he said, because the private aircraft's weight and fuel consumption stay roughly the same."
Below are opening paragraphs from an 8/13/2024 ProPublica/Oregonian article authored by Rob Davis, Agnel Philips, and Alex Mierjeski of Propublica and Matthew Kish from the Oregonian, After Nike Leaders Promised Climate Action, Their Corporate Jets Kept Flying—and Polluting:
On dozens of occasions since 2020, a private Gulfstream jet belonging to Nike has touched down at Moffett Field, a federally owned airfield on the banks of San Francisco Bay.
The Silicon Valley site's most notable feature is a hulking building known as Hangar One, which in the 1930s housed a U.S. Navy airship and today is a conspicuous landmark along U.S. 101.
It also happens to sit about a 30-minute drive from one of Nike CEO John Donahoe's homes. He became the Oregon-based company's top executive in January 2020, bought a condo in Portland and registered as an Oregon voter. But he also maintained a home in the Bay Area community of Portola Valley. His previous job was leading a tech company in Santa Clara, and his wife worked at Stanford University until September.
Nike's jets landed at Moffett more than 100 times in the first three and a half years of Donahoe's tenure, flight-tracking records show. Landings at Moffett stopped in July 2023 but became more frequent at a nearby airport with a similar drive time to Portola Valley.
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To read the entire article which includes information on Nike jet flights to various locations including Cape Cod, MA, New York, Paris, San Jose, CA, Sun Valley, Idaho and the Caymen Islands click here.
Note: As of 10/14/2024, Elliott Hill assumed the role of Nike CEO and President. John Donohoe will, stay on in an advisory capacity through January 2025. A 9/19/2024 Nike Newsroom release with additional information on this transition is available here.
A 10/04/2024 follow-up article, We Reported on Nike's Extensive Use of Private Jets. The Company Just Made It Harder to Track Them by Rob Davis from ProPublica and Matthew Kish from the Oregonian/OregonLive, provided an update.
"Nike, the world's largest athletic apparel brand, has moved to hinder public scrutiny of its corporate jets after ProPublica and The Oregonian/OregonLive highlighted executives' travel destinations. In doing so, it became the latest participant in a cat-and-mouse game of jet owners seeking to cloak their movements around the globe.
A month after the story's publication, Nike's two Gulfstream G650ER jets were no longer visible on the flight tracking website FlightAware. Both were added to the Federal Aviation Administration's Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed list, consisting of planes that sites like FlightAware are not allowed to show. Placement on the list makes it harder—but not impossible—to see where the planes are going."
To read this article in full click here.
In a 7/11/2024 article Rob Davis from ProPublica co-published with Matthew Kish from the Oregonian/OregonLive, reported on Nike's decision to cut Sustainability Department positions by 30%. "The cuts to its sustainability staff of about 150 people were far deeper than Nike's 2% reduction companywide and 7% reduction at its Oregon headquarters."
To access the above referenced story Nike Pledged to Shrink Its Carbon Footprint. It Just Slashed the Staff Charged with Making That Happen click here.
Both Nike's corporate hangar and Phil Knight's personal hangar are located at the publicly subsidized Hillsboro Airport. According to a 7/8/2015 Complex article by Brendan Dunne, Go Inside Nike's Private Air Force Base, "The Nike Air Hangar 1, the company's corporate hangar, and the Ohcho Private Hangar, Knight's personal one, can hold up to five full-sized business jets combined...Amenities at the hangars include a gourmet kitchen, an exercise center, a space holding some pretty impressive Nike artifacts, and plenty of room for corporate meetings."
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