The topic of sustainability is also gaining momentum in the shoe industry – although you hear far less about it than in the textile fashion industry, especially when it comes to leather products. Why is that and where exactly is the industry?
Leather is one of the most important raw materials in the shoe industry. But how do you tell if a piece of leather – or even an entire shoe – is made sustainably? For example with the help of certificates. In the textile fashion industry, many such sustainability certificates have been created for a wide variety of areas in recent years. Even if the label forest has become confusing, certificates help consumers to recognize whether a brand takes responsibility and whether a product is more sustainable than another. So let’s start with the certificates: What labels and initiatives does the shoe industry have to offer?
Certificates and initiatives: How do you recognize sustainable leather?
There is the Leather Standard by Oeko-Tex, which, like the Standard 100 by Oeko-Tex, certifies that the product is harmless to health. It serves consumer:internal protection and not ecological or social standards in the process chain.
The standard “natural leather IVN certified” of the International Association of Natural Textile Industry eV (IVN) is considered the strictest certificate for sustainable leather. It contains specifications for all stages along the process chain from the raw material to the sale and use of the finished leather (not the processed leather product). However, this standard is at best known in German-speaking countries (there is no English term for it, in English it is called “Naturleder IVN certified”).
There is also the Leather Working Group (LWG) based in London, which works as a multi-stakeholder initiative with various players from industry, trade, NGOs and institutes. However, it certifies companies, not products, and is therefore little known to consumers. Its membership has increased tremendously in recent years: from 160 organizations at the beginning of 2017 to 1,300 today, including many big names from Adidas to Zalando.
And then there is Cads, the German industry initiative based at the German Shoe Institute (DSI) in Offenbach. It was founded in 2008 to improve product safety and set limit values for harmful substances, hence the nickname “Cooperation for secured, defined standards for shoe and leather goods eV”. There are currently 76 members, including the likes of ANWR, Sabu, Birkenstock, Görtz, Gabor, C&A, Deichmann, Ricosta, Picard, Lloyd and Lowa. The organization does not issue a certificate, and the initiative is probably completely unknown to consumers.
Cads: Pioneered the avoidance of Chromium VI
Cads actually has a lot to show for it: “Historically, we emerged from the avoidance of pollutants and published guidelines for leather manufacturers for the first time in 2015 to train them in avoiding the formation of chrome VI,” explains Manfred Junkert, Managing Director of Cads. The manual has been translated into many languages and has become a standard reference for the global leather industry. Junkert: “I’ve often heard that our Cads Handbook is something like the producers’ bible. In recent years we have seen a significant improvement and a significant impact of our work on the producing countries.” It is always about pooling knowledge and passing it on to the producers. For example, Cads publishes an RSL (Restricted Substances List), which is further developed and tightened every year in order to eliminate harmful substances from the production process or to further limit their use. According to Junkert, CADs limit values are often above the legal requirements and REACH.
In the meantime, the focus has broadened to include social standards, environmental protection, the circular economy and CO2 emissions.
Anyone who takes part in Cads voluntarily undertakes to meet the deliberately high goals. “Cads has always seen itself as an alliance of the willing. We try to be a pioneer,” Junkert continues. Only external communication has been neglected so far, and Cads now wants to change that.
How sustainable can leather be? The leather factory Josef Heinen
Leather is a natural product that is a by-product of the meat industry anyway. So it is not specially made. Not using it would not be sustainable. However, the processing of leather is considered to be particularly dirty, which is why tanneries are mainly found in low-wage countries today. The leather factory Josef Heinen from Germany, which is run by the fourth generation and has given top priority to environmental protection for decades, proves that there is another way.
More than 15 years ago, Heinen developed the Terracare label as a trademark for its sustainable leather. Sustainability begins with the origin of the animal skins. “We only work with German slaughterhouses that get their animals from the surrounding area and that are well controlled,” explains Managing Partner Thomas Heinen. In this way he can ensure that all processes are carried out in accordance with the law and as quickly and painlessly as possible for the animal. So that the skins are not damaged on the way to the tannery, Heinen has them cooled. “In this way we preserve the hides and can completely do without the environmentally harmful salting of the hides.” This environmentally friendly measure is impossible in the globalized tanning guild: Since most hides come from North and South America, but most leather is tanned in Asia, it can be used no cold chain can be maintained during long transport.
The tanning process requires a lot of chemicals, but there is still a lot that can be improved. “In most countries, chemicals are all about price,” says Heinen. “There are good alternatives, but they are often much more expensive.” Heinen also works with chrome tanning and manages its chemical input using RSL lists and the REACH regulation, but also pays attention to how sustainably the materials are transported, whether they are biodegradable and whether they remain in the finished product.
Ricosta: The shoe industry’s first Blue Angel
The German children’s shoe label Ricosta from Donaueschingen is one of the brands that use Terracare leather from Heinen in their products. Ricosta is also a member of Cads and, according to its own statement, the first children’s shoe company in the world to have a product certified with the Blue Angel. Ricosta has just introduced this seal and chose it because of its high level of awareness, even if it has not played a role in the fashion industry so far.
“The sustainability of the shoe industry is not communicated as it should be,” says Jörg Ertl, member of the Ricosta management board. A Blue Angel could point the way. It stands for high environmental standards in production and compliance with social standards. Many of the company’s products meet the requirements of the seal, but the enormous amount of documentation alone prevents more shoes from being marked with it. Ricosta set up an environmental management system back in 1997 and produces exclusively in its own factories in Europe. Most of the leather also comes from Germany and Italy. “We have the entire value chain in our own hands. This is particularly important for children’s shoes,” explains Ertl.
However, the shoe industry does not need its own seal – issued by Cads, for example. Ertl: “I counted it, there are 132 seals. This is insane and hard to overlook. We don’t want to hide behind the seals, but offer end users many opportunities to find out more, including live chats on our website.”
New sustainable labels are conquering the market
The fact that the shoe and leather industry is now beginning to communicate its good deeds better may also have something to do with the fact that leather has increasingly fallen into disrepute in recent years. Especially on the part of veganism. Anna Blunck, Head of Buying at the sustainable online marketplace Avocado Store, has also noticed this: “The most frequent request from our customers is: Is the shoe vegan? Many believe vegan equals sustainability, which of course is not the case. A lot of education still needs to be done,” she says in an online conference of the shoe industry.
Pressure is also growing from other quarters: sustainable newcomers such as Allbirds are taking the international markets by storm, driven by social media, the DTC business and consumer desire for sustainable shoes. The Berlin start-up Winqs has just received an Ispo Award for its sustainable Zerofly running shoe. It is made almost entirely from bio-based or recycled materials. “Many plant-based substances are now even more efficient than plastic, which is popular for cost reasons,” says Jan Kratochvil, co-founder of Winqs. The company also offers a repair service and taking back shoes for recycling.
Kratochvil himself has worked in the shoe industry for a long time and has seen that many brands do individual lighthouse projects, but remain stationary when it comes to the changeover to mass production. “This is also due to the fact that the traditionally positioned shoe industry is exposed to enormous price and margin pressure.” As a newcomer, Winqs has the advantage of being able to start from scratch, with a stronger DTC business, a selective dealer network and without the obligation to replace existing ones having to continue sales channels.
Circular economy is still in its infancy when it comes to shoes
Although there has been progress in improving individual process steps in the manufacture of shoes, the question of how shoes can be recycled at the end of their useful life is still completely unresolved. A shoe made of mono material that still fulfills all functional requirements has not yet been invented. The alternative, namely the dismantling of the shoe into its components in order to return them to the production cycle, has so far failed due to feasibility. Jörg Ertl from Ricosta: “The basic problem with shoes is the large number of different materials in the shoe. The effort involved in separating these materials in order to feed them back into a product cycle is very high. In principle, our soles, which we inject directly, could be granulated after separation and used elsewhere. We are researching and working on different possibilities.”
Timberland has now announced that it will release a shoe for Earth Day that is durable and yet can be easily taken apart and recycled. The brand has been working with recycled leather from production leftovers and recycled rubber for a long time. But that too is just a flagship project. As in many other sectors, recycling and the circular economy are still in their infancy in the shoe industry.