Fashion for Good, an NGO, focuses on crucial points to achieve circularity in the fashion industry. Expanding on projects like the Fast Feet Grinded pilot - collecting and recycling post-consumer shoes - it collaborates with partners to enhance efforts.

Source: edie

The new initiative will emphasize design and material innovation, exploring next-gen reuse and recycling methods. It will concentrate on four key areas:

• Design: Defining circular design in footwear and establishing guidelines for a circular infrastructure.
• Materials: Identifying sustainable options for materials like plastics, leather, and rubber.
• End of Use: Creating a database on post-consumer footwear waste and exploring solutions for repair, disassembly, and recycling.
• Traceability: Introducing a protocol for footwear traceability to support sustainability claims.

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.

In the global footwear industry, around 24 billion shoes are produced annually, consisting of over 40 components made from various materials. Due to shoe complexity and low collection rates, about 90% of discarded footwear ends up in landfills. Fashion for Good aims to tackle these issues and promote footwear circularity through this initiative.

Through this partnership, we have collaborated on a number of different sustainable innovation initiatives that are benefitting 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.

Innovators are invited to apply, and collaborators are encouraged to join the movement to drive impactful changes in footwear circularity. The deadline for applications is September 20th.