A new iPhone app from Nike allows product designers to check the sustainability of the materials they are considering using in new products.
Some time ago, a team of employees at Nike was given a special project: Cataloging the 75,000-some items found in the company’s vast materials library and giving them each a score based on their environmental impact and long-term sustainability. No one had really done anything like it before, and it ultimately took the team six years to complete. Now, you can flick through their findings on your iPhone …
In an effort to encourage other manufacturers to make use of the data, Nike put the Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) on the web. However, feeling the MSI web info would be used mostly at the production stage, by which time most of the materials decisions would be set in stone, Nike decided an app might lead to the MSI data being used by designers.
“What you want to do is put tools in the hands of designers that are bespoke to their means at the moment of truth, which is the moment of design,” said Hannah Jones, Nike’s VP of Sustainable Business and Innovation. “The app is really tailored to help them make real-time predictive choices around the materials they use.”
The app, “Making of Making Powered by NIKE MSI,” is available for the iPhone and iPad FREE in the App Store. [DIRECT LINK]
