Footwear Is Designed to Fail. And It’s Failing the Planet, too.
Every single year a shocking 24 billion pairs of shoes are produced globally. That’s enough, give or take the odd million, for every person on the planet. Three times over.
More shocking still, however, is the fact that in the same twelve-month period 22 billion pairs are discarded – mostly to landfill – because they quickly start to fall apart.
Now footwear designer Alan Lugo reveals exclusively to Eco Age that shoes are not designed to last, they are designed to fail.
Industry leaders are slow to make more sustainable changes while their products are selling. While apparel fashion embraces natural and next-gen materials to positive effect, it seems footwear is lagging behind
Stepping up to address the problem is the Footwear Innovation Foundation. Established in April, with backing from brands like Michael Kors, the Deckers group and Genesco, the FIF aims to tackle “pervasive industry-wide challenges.”
In 2023, Nike alone is reported to have produced 800 million pairs of shoes – up 2.6% from 2022. adidas produced around half that number. That’s over a billion shoes just from two brands in the same category.
It’s not hard to see how these impossible-seeming numbers start to stack up in real terms.
The Unsustainable Status Quo
Andy Polk – a key member of the FIF’s founding board and Senior Vice President of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America believes businesses feel they are too busy to innovate.
“Footwear leaders are increasingly preoccupied with addressing immediate challenges, leaving little time to consider how to innovate towards latent demand and develop new models.
“Basically, we are so busy putting out today’s fires that many cannot pick up their head to look at what’s next.” Polk says.
What damage is this doing to the Planet?
Shoes are, for the most part, made from either animal leather or petro-based plastics. The toxic effects of leather tanneries and the industry’s contribution to global emissions are well documented. The problem of fossil fuels is common knowledge too. And, while the proliferation of microplastics (from our oceans to our brains) is a relatively new item on the agenda, it’s one with considerable traction.
Production Over Progress
Lugo, a member of the FIF’s Innovation Advisory Council, with time spent at major player Wolverine Worldwide and next-gen outfit Natural Fiber Welding, is convinced shoes are being intentionally produced with design flaws.
He says: “What fails first and leads to repurchase is either the sole wearing out, or the lining in the heel wearing out.
“Most designers don’t get feedback from the end consumer about what failed in their shoe.
“That’s mostly fielded by customer service, who will usually just offer a replacement pair or a discount. It’s siloed, especially at the large brands, because without good, rich, organised data – it’s just a distraction.”
So, if you’re constantly finding a hole in the heel of your shoes, just know it isn’t how you’re walking – it’s what you’re wearing. At this point, it isn’t so much a design fault as it is a design feature; part and parcel of the final product.
Is it not that these problems can’t be fixed, then, but rather that they’re ignored in favour of keeping the sales flow unbroken?
“Yes,” Lugo continues: “There is a fix but brands don’t care enough. They don’t care because people – consumers – don’t care enough, either. The underlying social issue here, the one that fights progress, is that people like buying shoes.
“I think most brands realise it’s not worth the resources to be a leader in this space,” Lugo concludes: “Good enough is good enough.”
FIF Chairman Andy Gilbert is also acutely aware of this problem and remains sympathetic to the industry’s difficulties.
He explains, “We find a consistent response from companies across the industry, from retail outfits to the brands, which points to the idea that innovation is a nice idea, but the rigors of managing the day-to-day process get in the way of addressing true innovation.”
If we want to see fewer pairs of shoes festering in footwear landfill every year, we need change from the sole up – not just the laces. Only a full-scale reimagining of how footwear is produced and consumed can hope to break the cycle of world-destroying waste.
Header image courtesy of Nicholas Rapagnani
Karl Smith-Eloise is Features Director for Eco Age. He has worked as the EMEA Editorial Lead for HYPEBEAST and Editorial Director of FUTUREVVORLD, as a contributing editor to Highsnobiety, and for the fashion house FENDI. He now focuses exclusively on Earth-forward and ethical avenues in fashion, footwear and the broader culture.