FOOTWEAR CIRCULARITY

Around 23.9Bn shoes are produced globally each year, they are often made using over 40 different components from a range of different materials including TPU, EVA, PU and rubber. The industry faces significant challenges due to this high complexity of shoe construction. This combined with a low collection rate, results in a vast majority of discarded footwear ending up in landfills. Fashion for Good sees the need to address this challenge and focus on laying the foundation for footwear circularity as well as accelerating innovation. 

Problem Statement

The diversity of constituent materials makes footwear disassembly and recycling very challenging – some footwear is made with over 40+ materials. Scaled technology does not exist that can deconstruct footwear into its composite parts – creating a mixed waste stream. Around 95% of used footwear goes to landfill or incineration. There are many factors that must be considered when thinking about material usage for footwear, especially adhesives – e.g. in sports shoes they need to be able to tolerate flexural stresses and present high comfort and durability

What does FFG how to achieve working in this area?

Fashion for Good will double down their work in this space, building on their existing projects including the Fast Feet Grinded pilot, which tests and validates Fast Feet Grinded’s footwear recycling process. Expanding  on existing workstreams Fashion for Good will collaborate with our footwear focused partners, including adidas, Inditex, ON Running, PVH Corp., Reformation, Target, and Zalando.

How do we address this area?

To effectively address the challenges in footwear sustainability, Fashion for Good has identified the key intervention points across the shoe lifecycle and structured work into four core workstreams.

  • Design – Defining circular design in the footwear space and collectively driving guidelines to build a circular infrastructure

  • Materials – Scouting and validating sustainable alternatives for footwear materials including TPU, PU, EVA, leather, and rubber

  • End of Use: Sorting, Disassembly, & Recycling – Developing a comprehensive data set on post-consumer footwear waste flows, including (non-)rewearable fractions, volumes, construction and composition. As well as scouting and validating solutions for repair,  end of use, disassembly and recycling of footwear 

  • Traceability – Laying the foundation by amalgamating a footwear traceability data protocol to build traceability for evidence to substantiate sustainability claims

How do we address this area?

To effectively address the challenges in footwear sustainability, Fashion for Good has identified the key intervention points across the shoe lifecycle and structured work into four core workstreams.

    fast feet grinded

    Fast Feet Grinded Collaborative Pilot

    The aim of the pilot was to test and validate the FastFeetGrinded footwear recycling process by evaluating the quality of outputs and understanding the environmental impacts of the process. FastFeetGrinded is a company specialising in footwear recycling that accepts all types of footwear as feedstock to produce sorted material granulates with zero waste streams. FastFeetGrinded aims to deconstruct any type of pre- and post-consumer shoe, separating footwear into substituent components, which are then subsequently grinded down and processed to create material streams for repurposed use.

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Relevant Projects

    Fashion for Good Partners adidas, Inditex, Target & Zalando Join Forces with FastFeetGrinded for Circular Footwear

    Fashion for Good launches new pilot with brand partners adidas, Inditex, Target and Zalando, and footwear recycling innovator FastFeetGrinded to test and validate the innovative footwear recycling process to support the uptake of recycled content in footwear, driving the change towards a more circular footwear industry.
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    Pioneering the Future of Footwear: A New Initiative by Fashion for Good

    AMSTERDAM - Fashion for Good and its footwear focused partners adidas, Inditex, ON Running, PVH Corp., Reformation, Target, and Zalando announce an ambitious new initiative aimed at accelerating and validating the next generation of footwear innovations. This builds on the organisation’s existing work leveraging their expertise in scouting, validation, and pioneering innovation and collaboration. This initiative will address the key intervention points needed to drive footwear circularity spanning four work streams across the supply chain from materials to end of use. Industry wide collaboration will be vital to overcome the various roadblocks we face in this space. Therefore, Fashion for Good is launching a call for action, asking all relevant innovators to apply and collaborators to join in the movement.
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    Fashion For Good Partners With Adidas, On and More Brands to Make Footwear’s Supply Chain More Sustainable

    The Amsterdam-based platform for sustainable innovation is rolling out a new initiative designed to help shoe brands and retailers make their sourcing and manufacturing processes more environmentally-friendly.

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