Low-impact, high-performance, scalable leather has a big role to play
Amsterdam-based innovation hub Fashion for Good has launched a new initiative aimed at making the footwear supply chain more circular.
It said that, with billions of pairs being produced each year and recycling rates still low, there was an urgent need to accelerate innovation in footwear sustainability.
It will work with a number of prominent brands to identify sustainable materials, establish traceability, agree definitions for circular design and improve end-of-life management of shoes.
The senior vice-president for product operations at one of the brands involved, adidas, Sigrid Buehrle, said she hoped this initiative would help footwear brands and manufacturers identify a wider range of materials that have a low impact on the environment, meet performance requirements and are also scalable. “Currently, there is a limited portfolio of these materials,” she said. “We hope this initiative will help overcome some of these hurdles.”
In 2021, with millions of hides going to waste every year, sustainability consultant Veronica Bates Kassatly said: “The most sustainable shoe fibre at present is leather from low-quality hides. No contest.”
If more footwear brands chose to use leather from these affordable hides, they would save huge volumes of useful raw material from going to waste. It would also mean there would be less need to use environmentally problematic synthetic substitutes that make the end-of-life problem so difficult to resolve in footwear.
Image shows football manager José Mourinho sporting adidas Originals shoes with suede uppers.
Credit: adidas.
