Innovation & Education

Fashion for Good, a platform focused on driving sustainable fashion innovation, has launched a new initiative aimed at driving circularity in footwear.

The organisation is working in collaboration with Adidas, Inditex, ON Running, PVH Corp., Reformation, Target, and Zalando on the initiative, which will have four core workstreams.

The first workstream is Design and will involve defining circular design in the footwear space and collectively driving guidelines to build a circular infrastructure.

The second stream is Materials, which is focused on scouting and validating sustainable alternatives for footwear materials.

The third is End of Use: Sorting, Disassembly, & Recycling, whereby the group will develop a comprehensive data set on post-consumer footwear waste flows, including (non-)rewearable fractions, volumes, construction and composition, and scouting and validating solutions for repair, disassembly and recycling.

The fourth and final workstream is Traceability, which will see the group establish a footwear traceability data protocol to build traceability for evidence to substantiate sustainability claims.

“Fashion for Good and our corporate partners, including adidas, recognize the urgent need to accelerate innovation in footwear sustainability,” said Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good.

Indeed, almost 24 billion shows are produced each year across the world, often made using over 40 different components from a range of different materials, including TPU, EVA, PU and rubber.

The high complexity of show construction, along with low collection rates means that most shoes end up in landfill.

The organisation’s circularity-focused initiative is aimed at curbing this high-level of waste, and extending the life of footwear.

“Over the past seven years, we have consistently broken norms across various segments and are now leveraging our expertise to radically reimagine footwear. By doubling down on our efforts, we aim to drive circularity and validate sustainable solutions in a segment ripe for disruption,” added Ley.

Fashion for Good noted that it is seeking “breakthrough sustainable solutions” in the footwear sector that maintain performance and durability and is inviting innovators in footwear to contribute to the initiative.

“Through this partnership, we have collaborated on a number of different sustainable innovation initiatives that are benefitting the fashion industry. Now we want to build on this know-how and expand our focus into the Footwear space,” said Sigrid Buehrle, SVP of Product Operations and Sustainability, Adidas, which has been a partner of Fashion for Good for over six years.

“Currently, there is a limited portfolio of low-impact materials which also meet the necessary performance requirements that are also scalable. We hope this initiative will help overcome some of these hurdles,” added Buehrle.