A company's journey to sustainability is always going to be -- cliché alert! -- a marathon and not a sprint.

Just ask Nike. The company is a leader in environmental design, and yet it has a long way to go to reach its sustainability goals.

At least Nike knows where it's headed. It has a bold long term called the North Star. A key tool is known as Considered Design, where the goal is to

design products that are fully closed loop: produced using the fewest possible materials and designed for easy disassembly, while allowing them to be recycled into new product or safely returned to nature at the end of their life.

This is a big, radical, inspiring idea. Here's a cool video, just a minute long, about Considered Design:

I run marathons, so I know that you need to take a lot of steps to reach your goal. Recently, I sat down with Lorrie Vogel, the general manager of Considered Design, to learn more about what steps Nike has taken, and what's left to do, after hearing her excellent presentation at the State of Green Business Forum in Chicago.

The good news? Nike's vision is not only bold, but well thought-out and comprehensive. Nike's Considered Design index rewards designers who reduce waste, solvents and energy, and employ environmentally friendly materials.

"Our designers are the innovators in the company," Lorrie says. "They can have the largest impact downstream." She's a former designer and, like most people who work at Nike, an athlete. "The competition is fierce" among design groups to achieve gold, silver and bronze scores that depend on their environmental performance, she says.