More than 900,000 runners... over 12 million km covered... This is more than a movement. It’s a revolution.

The 2018 adidas x Parley Run For The Oceans has come to an end after exceeding all expectations and taking the oceans movement to a massive global audience. From Shanghai to São Paulo, Toronto to Tokyo, Barcelona to Berlin… the running community came out in force to put the oceans on top of the agenda worldwide.

Starting on World Oceans Day on June 8, nearly one million individual runners came together from around the world to raise awareness and funding for the oceans. Their enthusiasm, hard work and support were overwhelming, and the final statistics are mind-boggling…

924,237 runners around the world
12,402,854 km covered
Major events in 15 major world cities
adidas matched the first million kilometers run with $1/km in funding for Parley Ocean School initiatives

It took our global runners just a few days to smash through the million km target and go on to run over
11 million more!
Thousands of posts on social media, raising awareness about ocean plastic, marine wildlife, pollution, overfishing and other Parley causes

“First we created ripples on the surface, then more and more waves”

– Cyrill Gutsch, Parley founder

Official adidas x Parley runs kicked off in LA, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Shanghai, Barcelona, Milan, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Toronto, Chengdu and even sweltering Dubai. In Mumbai, 3000 incredible people turned out to run and help clean Versova Beach. Meanwhile, through the Runtastic and Joyrun apps, individual runners logged their miles over the course of a month – tracking runs across cities, deserts, mountain ridges and remote coastlines.

adidas and Parley have been working together to implement Parley AIR (avoid, intercept, redesign) across all levels of the corporation with the goal of reducing and ultimately ending the use of plastic. To set a new industry standard for environmental responsibility, we educate people on ocean issues, while creating eco-innovative solutions like the use of Parley Ocean Plastic® in adidas x Parley products.

Andre Maestrini of adidas adds: “Since 2015, adidas supports Parley in both its education and communication programs; it’s so inspiring to see the global running community come together for Run For The Oceans 2018, our most ambitious movement yet. Together with Parley we will continue to empower more and more people to use their love of running to spread awareness for the protection of our oceans.

ATHLETES TAKING PART INCLUDE:

Ricardo Kaká
Brazilian footballer

Marc-André ter Stegen
German goalkeeper

Ian Thorpe
Australian Olympic swimmer

Ning Zhe Tao
Chinese Olympic swimmer

Gabriel Villarán
Peruvian surfer

Jessica Ennis-Hill
British track-and-field Olympian

Hui Ruo Qi
Chinese volleyball player

...and dozens of other ambassadors