adidas, Inditex, Zalando and others join footwear circularity partnership

Seven footwear brands, including adidas, Inditex and Zalando, have joined a Fashion for Good initiative to accelerate innovation towards footwear circularity.

The partnership will focus on four core workstreams: developing circular design guidelines; validating circular footwear materials; gathering data on post-consumer waste flows to develop end-of-use solutions such as repair, disassembly and recycling; and creating a footwear traceability data protocol to back sustainability claims.

It will build on existing projects including the Fast Feet Grinded pilot, which tests and validates footwear recycling processes, and leverage Fashion for Good’s experience in orchestrating different stakeholders to accelerate innovation and develop regenerative fashion solutions.

As part of the initiative, Fashion for Good is also calling on footwear innovators with sustainable technologies to apply to participate in the project until September 20, 2024.

adidas: ‘a limited portfolio of low-impact materials’

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

Fashion for Good estimates that nearly 24 million shoes are produced globally each year, often using over 40 different components from various materials including TPU, EVA, PU and rubber. 

A global footwear waste problem

This composition, as well as the complexity of shoe construction, creates a significant waste challenge for the footwear industry, with the vast majority of shoes ending up in landfills.

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

Efforts grow to achieve fashion circularity

Earlier this year, several fast fashion brands, including H&M and Primark, joined an Ellen MacArthur Foundation initiative aiming to decouple revenue from production through circular fashion.

The partnership is exploring new business models, such as renting, reselling, repairing and remaking products to keep them in use for longer: according to the foundation, these new models could make up 23% of the global fashion market by 2030, or about US$700 billion.