Last year, Nike made its dataset of sustainable materials–developed over an eight-year period–available online for the public to use. The big reveal was part of the company’s Open Challenge for Sustainable Materials, which asked visitors to "select materials beautifully, simply, and accurately, based on sustainability."
This month, Nike made that challenge just a little bit easier with the Nike Making app, now available through iTunes. The app is essentially a portable version of the database that has been available for a little over a year. Designers can look at 22 product materials–including silk, down, cotton, and polypropylene fabric–and find out their environmental impacts in four categories: waste, water use, energy, and chemistry. Performance and aesthetics are also taken into account.
