Wallpaper - 09.2019

Training shoes, sneakers or even kicks

if you prefer, have become a key territory

in the sustainable fashion turf war. The

fashion industry’s environmental impact –

it produces more carbon emissions than

international flights and shipping combined –

is increasingly under scrutiny. And trainers

leave a particularly large and unpleasant

footprint, as they use a lot of different and

‘problematic’ materials – leather, nylon,

synthetic rubber, plastic and viscose – and

involve a number of different manufacturing

processes – injection moulding, foaming,

heating, cutting and sewing. That means a lot

of resource-munching making and logistical

toing and froing up and down the supply

chain. Where they are made also matters.

Over three-quarters of the world’s trainers

are produced in China, where manufacturing

is still – despite some positive moves – vastly

reliant on fossil fuels. (If you want to get

to grips with the complex sustainability issues

around sneaker production, check out the

excellent Better Shoes Foundation website.)

For sustainably-minded entrepreneurs

then, sneaker-making leaves a lot of room

for footprint-reducing manoeuvres. Perhaps

the most visible of these niche players (and

getting less niche by the day) is Paris-based

Veja. The brand was launched by childhood

friends Sébastien Kopp and François-Ghislain

Morillion in 2005. With backgrounds in

banking, neither was, by their own admission,

a ‘sneaker head’. But intent on a sustainable

business, they understood that sneakers was

a market where they could make a big impact.

Veja’s shoes, mostly plain white and with

a distinctive coloured V, are entirely produced

in Brazil. The brand works with local organic

cotton producers, Amazonian rubber farmers

and a factory that turns plastic water bottles

into thread for uppers. Crucially, argue the

founders, most Veja customers are only dimly

aware of its sustainability credentials, if at all.

It has prospered largely on good looks. And it

has really prospered over the last three years,

with sales up 70 per cent in 2018 to €30m.

A more recent launch, but also gaining

attention, is Allbirds. A favourite of tech

workers and off-duty celebs, the brand was

co-founded in San Francisco two years ago

Eco trainers to minimise your carbon footprint

PHOTOGRAPHY: SEBASTIAN LAGER WRITER: NICK COMPTON

ADIDAS

ADIDAS PARTNERED

WITH NON-PROFIT

PARLEY FOR THE

OCEANS TO PRODUCE A

RANGE OF SNEAKERS

WITH UPPERS OF WOVEN

RECYCLED OCEAN

PLASTIC. ‘ALPHAEDGE

4D PARLEY’, £250

TREAD LIGHTLY

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