When it comes to ethical manufacture, how does the footwear industry stack up?
Shoe brands have mostly flown under the radar yet the industry has many sustainability issues, says Morgan Theakston from the charity Tearfund NZ.
Photo: Chuttersnap
Listen to the full interview
- Read: Footwear: an industry laced with expectation by Morgan Theakston
Recently, Tearfund researched 25 footwear companies and measured their level of disclosure on human rights and environmental policies and practices in their supply chain.
Overall, shoe brands – including New Zealand brands – scored on average of 23 out of 100.
The highest-scoring companies were Adidas and Puma, with 58 out of 100.
Hannahs and Number One Shoes scored a zero – as they didn’t participate in the survey, publicly available information was used.
Overland Footwear (which includes Mia Piaci, Deuce and Merchant 1948) scored 13 and All Birds scored just above average with 27.
“[All Birds] do have amazing sustainability initiatives and their merino comes from New Zealand but it’s also shipped off to factories in Asia, to China, and turned into the fabric which is then turned into the shoe.
“The reason that [All Birds’] score is low is because our survey...also really looked at the human side of things.”
All Birds didn’t provide much information about worker wellbeing or the conditions their workers faced in their factories in China, Theakston says.
Only a handful of the shoe companies had made a commitment to reduce emissions and over half of them didn’t even know where their shoes were made.
“It was really clear to us from the get-go that the shoe industry is hiding a bit behind the clothing industry."
Footwear brands need to be more transparent, she says.
“There’s no way that customers can hold brands to account for their claims if they're not made publicly.”
As part of their survey, Tearfund spoke to people who work at leather tanneries, turning cow hides into the leather that's made into shoes.
“They were saying they work 16-to-24-hour days, many of them feel like they don’t earn enough to be able to feed their family sufficiently or to give their families enough food. They’re working with these really toxic chemicals... workers told us there’s child labour. Just really sad stuff and really eye-opening.”
The current rates of footwear production and consumption are unsustainable for both workers and the planet, Theakston says.
“Just think of the whole story behind something, realise that when you go to buy it there’s a whole life that it’s already had and it starts with a person who made the shoe.
“The number one thing you can do to make a difference is to buy less and to love what you own.”