You may ask, why did you co kickstart SneakAhead?

Let me start with a confession.

Perhaps because my wife is a scientist, I’ve been following the hard scientific facts about global warming, and I’m deeply concerned about us being far from controlling the root causes and falling into an irreversible catastrophic tipping point. I’m also obsessed about the social and environmental impact of the footwear industry because it’s been a big part of my career.

I began designing and developing low-impact shoes about 20 years ago, and I live and breathe sustainability in footwear. I get my daily dose via Google alerts to ensure I don’t miss any bit of news on the subject, no matter how small or where on Earth it was published - my inbox is always oven-ready to display the latest ‘industry intelligence’.

Being a sustainable footwear sponge, I soak up everything, whether it appears to be authentic and ground-breaking or if it smells of toxic greenwashing - which I’ve been seriously overdosing on, involuntary. It’s truly remarkable to watch just how almost everyone is greenwashing to some extent. Competition is fierce out there so it’s too tempting to exaggerate your green claims, for them to sound and look more meaningful, impactful, or comprehensive to the average sustainability-savvy consumer. Marketing teams have become masterful in greenwashing, exploring how far they can push their goody-goody agenda for it to look perfectly plausible and without getting caught.

As part of my work, I founded the Better Shoes Foundation - an initiative to minimise harmful practices and promote sustainable development in the shoe industry. We have some big plans and although I’m excited about making positive change and have been encouraged by a number of supportive small and medium businesses, in reality the biggest impact comes from the biggest players which happen to be sports brand selling sneakers.

While I welcome some of their sustainable initiatives (some of which are impressive), I despair about their true global impact. Especially because all the predictions show a substantial GROWTH in sneaker production for the next decade. This is important because right now we are at a critical time when climate emergency dictates that we must go in the exact opposite direction!  

It’s hugely disappointing and frustrating to see the biggest sneaker brands in the world come up with the biggest sustainable solutions (as you’d expect), yet constantly fail to scale these solutions so that they remain a very small proportion of their overall production.

Brands’ positive impact should be measured relatively to the size of their operations, and this is where I find a big unknown black hole. The main problem we have is their lack of transparency. Brands are quick to shout about their latest green product launches (say a sneaker with a minimum of 25% recycled content - which by the way is disappointingly low), but can they tell us how many pairs of sneakers they produce annually, and what is the proportion of sneakers across all their annual production that has such a degree of recycled content? Can they tell us what is the recycled or low-impact material content on average across all their sneakers?

Some brands are boasting about achieving record-breaking low carbon footprint on a newly released shoe, but can they tell us what is their average CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent emissions) per pair across all their annual production?

And if they claim that there are no issues in their supply chains with regards to labour standards, can they prove this to come clean? Perhaps by filming where their sneakers are made and by whom? Wouldn’t you love to see such footage? It will be SO refreshing to see the human side behind their sneakers for a change, rather than ANOTHER flashy ad featuring those who wear them.

Until they publish their overall social and environmental impact, I will remain highly sceptical about claims such as “leaders in sustainability”. How can we hold big brands accountable if they don’t disclose their impact? Just think, brands who aren’t transparent have something to hide. You have to wonder why is this information being hidden from us? We all live on this planet and share its resources – don’t we have a right to know?

So, what will it take for the big players to truly embrace sustainability to the core and without compromise - as they should? Aren’t they responsible for each and every product they produce?

Out of the 24 BILLION pairs of shoes we produce a year, how many do you think are "considered sustainable”?  It really depends how you define sustainable but the only report we could find by Statista suggests that only 5% are sustainable – and this is according to the revenue. Since sustainable sneakers tend to be more expensive, in terms of quantity (actual pairs of shoes) it must be lower than 5%. Which means that over 95% of sneakers are NOT sustainable. Shouldn’t sustainable sneakers be the norm, not the exception?

The graph above shows just how appallingly bad the footwear industry is and how hopelessly low the current growth rate is in sustainability. If we compare this to the car industry for example, almost 30% of cars produced in 2022 were electric, and the growth in electric car production since last year has almost doubled (90%) - whereas the growth rate in sustainable shoes is only about 9% year-on-year.

The largest sneaker brands are dragging their feet with small incremental improvements and long-term sustainability pledges which are effectively too little, too late to avert climate catastrophe.

Perhaps top executives would argue there is a cost issue, but what about the social and environmental cost? What about all the environmental damage, natural resources depletion, air and water pollution, and the mountains of waste these brands have produced throughout the past few decades? Shouldn’t they be responsible for everything they produced in the past?

I think they should. The greenhouse gasses that cause global warming are cumulative. The deforestation problem is cumulative. The mountains and rivers of waste is cumulative. The pollution that causes biodiversity loss is cumulative.

Perhaps they should be using their cumulative profits to clean up their act.

If sneaker companies are aiming to become truly Net Zero, rather than use their future long-term goal as a marketing campaign that appears to be an achievement they already bagged, perhaps they should be thinking about calculating Net Zero from the first sneaker they produced, not just from future productions. Wouldn’t this be appropriate, fairer and more responsible?

We are not impressed by their supposedly “ambitious” goals as they are far from being radical enough to reverse the huge damage that has already been done by producing many billions of sneakers throughout the past decades using highly polluting practices. Since we are now on the verge of climate catastrophe with millions of people already suffering from global warming, we cannot afford to wait a moment longer. You must have noticed the recent escalation in extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and storms - it’s only going to get worse without urgent disruptive action.

No more foot-dragging and no more excuses. Just do it. Put your skates on and sneak ahead.

Please join us if you share my views. I hope this campaign will make a difference. The global sneaker community – the bloggers, youtubers, traders, superfans, and collectors – are what make the industry. You have a right to be listened to, not just because it is your scene but because it is your planet too. If we all join forces, we can get the brands who make the biggest impact to listen and act.