Fashion for Good, along with partners adidas, Inditex, ON Running, PVH Corp., Reformation, Target, and Zalando, has announced a new initiative to advance footwear sustainability. This effort builds on their expertise in innovation and collaboration, targeting key areas to drive footwear circularity.

Annually, 23.9 billion shoes are produced worldwide, often composed of over 40 different materials like TPU, EVA, PU, and rubber. The complexity of shoe construction and low collection rates result in most discarded footwear ending up in landfills. Fashion for Good aims to tackle this by focusing on circularity and accelerating innovation in footwear recycling.

Four core workstreams

Materials: Scouting and validating sustainable alternatives for footwear materials.

Design: Defining circular design and driving guidelines for circular infrastructure.

End of Use: Developing data on post-consumer footwear waste and validating solutions for repair, disassembly, and recycling.

Traceability: Creating a traceability data protocol to substantiate sustainability claims.

Fashion for Good’s experience in multi-stakeholder projects and innovation validation will be pivotal. Partners, including The Footwear Collective, will align efforts to achieve significant results.

Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good, emphasized the organization's and its partners' recognition of the urgent need to accelerate innovation in footwear sustainability. She highlighted their goal to drive circularity and validate sustainable solutions in a segment that is ready for disruption.

Sigrid Buehrle, SVP of Product Operations at adidas, noted that their partnership with Fashion for Good has led to several sustainable innovation initiatives. She expressed their intention to now focus on footwear and address challenges related to the scalability of low-impact materials.