Author: Alexa Gandy

‘Through Sport we have the Power to Change Lives’

Sustainability is an integral part of adidas’ ‘Own The Game’ strategy which will guide adidas through to 2025. It focuses heavily on sustainability and pushing the boundaries by responding to challenges which endanger the planet and people.

By 2025, adidas aims for nine out of ten articles to be sustainable. This will be achieved by using recycled, renewable, and natural materials.

ADIDAS X PARLEY

On Earth Day in 2015, adidas announced its partnership with Parley for the Oceans [Parley]. Parley is an environmental organisation and global collaboration network addressing major threats to our planet. A new concept shoe made from reclaimed marine plastic waste was showcased at The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to illustrate their commitment to protecting the planet by conserving the oceans.

Fast forward to the present, and adidas has introduced Primeblue and Primegreen performance fabrics which are used to make many adidas products more sustainable.

Primeblue is a high-performance yarn made with 50% parley ocean plastic – upcycled waste intercepted on shorelines and coastal areas, preventing it from polluting our oceans.

Primegreen is made with a series of high-performance recycled materials which contains no virgin plastic.

In 2020, adidas produced more than 15 million pairs of shoes containing Parley Ocean Plastic (a material created from upcycled plastic waste that was intercepted from beaches and coastal communities before reaching the ocean) and are aiming for 17 million in 2021.

Both Primeblue and Primegreen will play a significant role in adidas’ goal to completely phase out the use of virgin plastics and polyesters in all products by 2024 and their aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“At adidas, our core belief is that through sport, we have the power to change lives. This becomes particularly relevant when we talk about the impact we have with our sustainability work. We are one of the very few companies that integrate sustainability into their business model, which become most visible in the fact that we take sustainability to the product level.”

Kasper Rorsted, adidas CEO

For more information visit adidas.co.uk/sustainability

Working with brands who are focused on sustainability is important to Specialist Sports. Discover the steps we are making to help improve our sustainability here.

Flexible working, including working from home and remote working, has become a large part of many people’s lives over the past year (and more!) due to the global pandemic. Some of the team here at Specialist Sports were familiar with flexible working but for others, it was a totally new concept.

For me personally, having been field-based in previous roles, I was accustomed to working remotely. However, I would usually have been in the field 3-4 days a week meeting customers or visiting the office. There is a really big difference when you’re forced to work from home full-time!

Over the past year, I’ve gathered some learnings and suggestions for how to work well remotely during a pandemic and beyond.

Staying Creative

We’ve all learned quite rapidly how to interact and work in the virtual world. No-one is unaccustomed to a virtual call or meeting anymore, as we may have been pre-February 2020. As a result, you might have found your calendars blocked to the brim with Teams or Zoom meetings, which creates endless lists of organised appointments. But what about those spontaneous conversations, like you have in the office at the coffee station? Sometimes those off-the-cuff meetings are the most productive or creative, as smaller topics can often be handled more productively. So when you’re in the office, don’t block out your diary with meetings. Find time to interact more casually with your work colleagues.

For longer meetings with multiple topics to be covered, a clear agenda is a great and simple way of providing more structure to save time on these calls. Just make sure you also leave time to be creative too.

Keeping Active

It’s important to get outdoors and stay active or encourage your team to do so. From training indoors to running at lunchtime, a step away from the desk can be all that’s needed to refresh your mind and help you work more effectively.

If you’ve found your motivation to get outdoors reduced though, you’re not alone. That’s why we (Specialist Sports) introduced our very own sports challenge to increase motivation and bring our team together, albeit we are sometimes so far apart physically.

Creating Boundaries

Your ‘home office’ might be a challenging environment, if you don’t have a separate room or space to work in. More often than not, you may need to use a dining room table, the corner of your living room or a make-shift desk!

Whatever space you use to work, just make sure you create a distinction between your office and home environment. This might mean spending 10 minutes before and after work to set up and break down your area. It could just change your mindset and create the clear boundary you need between your work and home life.

Aside from boundaries, it really is the little things which make all the difference. Did you know natural light and plants have a great impact on our mood? Setting up beside a window, or adding plants to your desk might be the small change which has great impact.

For me, I keep a photograph of my children on my desk at the office, so doing the same at home makes it feel more like my workspace.

Being Equipped

As lockdown eases, many of us are beginning to move between the office and home to work. It’s vital your home working space is fully equipped so you can work to the best of your abilities, as you would in the office. An extra screen, a suitable chair, a keyboard; these are just a few examples of what you should have access to at home if you need them. At Specialist Sports, we’re ensuring every employee has everything they need to function well at home, or remotely.

Remote or home-working is likely to continue to be a feature of all our lives for some time and many organisations will not return to how they operated pre-pandemic. Organisations need to adapt, as do employees. To be creative, share ideas effectively, and work productively as a team perhaps a combination of home-working and office working will become the new norm’ even as restrictions ease.

It’s safe to say 2020 has shaken up the fitness industry, and we’ve had to be inventive and adapt to new ways of working out to keep fit. This year in particular, we’ve seen a huge growth in home workouts and virtual training streamed live into living rooms. From celebrity workouts to a running boom, we’ve explored the top trends of this year.

Here’s some of the top fitness trends of 2020.

1. Celebrity Workouts 

From Joe Wicks’ PE lessons to Chris Hemsworth’s ‘Centr’ fitness workouts, we’ve had the opportunity to train virtually with some big names in 2020.

And what a motivation it has been! Joe Wick’s, known as the Nation’s PE Teacher, captured the attention of thousands of us across the country to work out with him virtually every morning during lockdown. Whilst Chris Hemsworth launched ‘Centr’, an online training platform for adults to train with him virtually.

2. Online Workouts With Your Gym

Unfortunately, gyms across the country have been forced to close due to Covid-19. Luckily, with an injection of innovation, many of our gyms have now gone online. Gyms now hold virtual online workouts, to help avoid the spread of Covid-19 and keep people fit during this difficult time.

Users can live-stream workouts into their homes, and from the comfort of their living rooms take part in online group workouts. Taking part in group exercises helps increase motivation and improve fitness levels, so we’re a big fan of this new way of working out.

3. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT workouts are short bursts of high-intensity training with less intense exercise or complete resting periods. This is repeated for a number of rounds, over a timeframe of 15-30 minutes on average.

And whilst they aren’t a brand-new trend, they are a growing one. HIIT workouts are gaining popularity because you can pack in a full workout in a short amount of time, in your own home. Not to mention, they have glowing reviews for increasing fat burn, improving your stamina, and getting you fit, fast.

4. Running

As gyms have closed, fitness classes are on pause and people are stuck at home, running has seen a BOOM. It’s one of the easiest and cheapest ways for people to get out and do some exercise, and gives you the opportunity to help control and manage stress. Especially during these tough periods, it’s been a source of relief for many as it’s a great method to improve mental health & well-being.

5. Wearable, Trackable Technology

Wearable fitness technology includes smart health watches, GPS tracking devices and heart rate monitors. It enables users to track performance, sleeping patterns, heart rate, recovery, and much more.

Tracking your performance during exercise can help users to improve their fitness levels and develop over time. And with technology advancing every day, fitness wearables’ popularity will only continue to grow.