Taking the athletic shoe industry to a much-needed new level for both performance and ethics, Adidas has created a prototype for a sustainable shoe that’s made almost exclusively from recycled ocean trash.

Adidas, which worked with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to source the trash during a 110-day expedition tracking illegal poachers, has launched the shoe in a partnership with Parley for the Oceans, a nonprofit organization working towards ending ocean pollution around the planet.

“We are extremely proud that Adidas is joining us in this mission and is putting its creative force behind this partnership to show that it is possible to turn ocean plastic into something cool,” Parley founder Cyrill Gutsch said to The Huffington Post.

According to the German company, Adidas’s new shoe’s upper is made entirely from illegal deep-sea gillnets and other ocean waste (there’s plenty of it to harvest). The shoe’s base comes by way of a sustainable cushioning material. “The concept shoe illustrates the joint commitment of Adidas and Parley for the Oceans and offers a first look at the kind of consumer-ready ocean plastic products that will be revealed later this year,” Adidas said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Adidas told The Huffington Post the shoe is not currently for sale, and the company is unsure whether it would be in the near future—but that’s not exactly the point of the shoe. “This is not a plan, this is an action,” she said. “We did this to show what we are capable of doing when we all put our heads together.”

Ocean trash is an increasingly severe problem impacting every corner of the world’s oceans. All marine life is affected by ocean pollution, as are the communities who rely on ocean fish as part of their diet. Research continues to show levels of plastic-based toxins in numerous fish species.

Countless pairs of shoes could be produced from ocean trash (and certainly other types of trash as well), which is not only a very good way to help remove the debris from the waters, but also takes aim at another highly toxic industry: leather.

The leather shoe industry is massive. It’s a huge source of pollution, from the resources used to raise the animals to the methane they produce and the dozens of chemical processes involved in tanning, dying, and processing animal skins into leather—not to mention the immense animal suffering.

If Adidas is capable of mass-producing shoes from ocean trash, it’s proof any shoe manufacturer can—and should—start doing it now, for the oceans, for the cows, for the planet, and for our (guilt-free) feet.

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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Image via Adidas

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Infused with a snarky personality and advanced mobile technology, these talking sneakers could put your personal trainer out of a job.

Humans were built for exercise. We’ve got massive muscles, a strong skeleton, and a metabolism that just begs to be used. In our hunter-gatherer years, the daily struggle for survival was all the workout we needed, but decades of inventing for convenience has left us stationary and fat. Now, we run on treadmills and take high-intensity aerobics classes just to force ourselves to break a sweat.

Even in our sedentary world, opportunities for exercise are everywhere–it’s the motivation that’s lacking. We sign up for high price gym memberships and personal training sessions only to come up with lame excuses for why don’t show up.

Being lazy used to be a secret between us and the couch, but a new collaboration between Google and Adidas could guilt us into action.

During the recent SXSW festival in Austin, the two companies revealed a “talking shoe” concept that delivers a running critique of your activity levels. Spend too much time in the seated position, and the shoe is guaranteed to have something to say about it.

“Using an accelerometer, a gyroscope, Bluetooth and some other off the shelf technologies, the Talking Shoe translates the wearer’s movements into funny, motivating and timely commentary,” explains designer Zach Lieberman of YesYesNo. “The things it says can be posted to Google+ by the user, sent to real-time ad units, if the user chooses to, and broadcast via onboard speakers. It can talk to the world and to the web,” if the wearer so chooses.

Stay stationary too long, for instance, it will say things like, “This is super-boring” or “Quick, someone check my pulse”, reports Ecouterre. “It might even start offering suggestions, such as a run or a game of basketball. Start getting physical, however, and the shoe will change its tune, noting “That’s more like it,” or “I love the feel of the wind in my laces.”

It’s not hard to see that this humor-based technology could actually be effective. We use all kinds of tricks and apps to hold ourselves accountable to our own fitness goals. The problem with these technologies is that they require our input to be of use. If you skip a workout or fail to reach a goal, they do nothing. These shoes, however, would intrude on our inner excuse-making process, make us laugh, and hopefully, be the push we need to finally get up and move.

“By bringing the personalization and intelligence of the Web to everyday things, we can make them more useful and entertaining,” the designers say. These connected and smart objects are sharing relevant information with us, turning chores into games and making us healthier.”

Unlike the Google Glass, however, neither company has plans of bringing the show to market just yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else seized the utility of this idea, and ran with it. Literally.

Image: Art, Copy & Code

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Has Stella McCartney earned her place in the sustainable-fashion spotlight?

The mainstream media often labels designer Stella McCartney the “queen” of eco-fashion for her incorporation of sustainable practices and her refusal to use fur and animal skins in her designs. As a spokesperson for PETA, McCartney frequently speaks out against animal cruelty in the fashion industry, and as a participating designer in Livia Firth’s Green Carpet Challenge, she has outfitted a number of red carpet celebrities in environmentally-friendly garb.

But when you take a closer look at McCartney’s practices, you begin to realize that her sustainable and ethical commitments are not nearly as fervent as the media hypes them up to be. In this week’s Behind the Label, we examine whether Stella has really earned her spot in the eco-fashion spotlight.

The Good

As the daughter of former Beatle Paul McCartney, Stella has always been considered a type of British royalty. She developed an interest in fashion at an early age and honed her skills interning for Christian Lacroix and Sevile Row tailor Edward Sexton before going on to earn a degree in fashion design from Central St Martins in 1995. Just two years later, McCartney was appointed Creative Director of Parisian fashion house Chloe, a move that forced critics, including Karl Lagerfield, to attribute her success to her father’s fame. But McCartney proved herself with critically acclaimed and commercially viable designs, and in 2001 she launched her own eponymous fashion house under what is now the PPR Luxury Group.

From the start of her fashion career, McCartney’s long-standing vegetarianism led her to publicly boycott fur and animal skins in her designs. She regularly states that sustainability and environmental awareness are cornerstones of her brand, like in this interview conducted by Charlotte Casiraghi for Above magazine:

For me, it’s about the basic principles: Sustainability is important, as is recycling. Everyone can do simple things to make a difference, and every little bit really does count. That said, my job is to make desirable, luxurious, beautiful clothing and accessories that women want to buy.

On the materials side, Stella says that she tries to use organic cotton — but “can’t always afford to or get enough of it” – and low-impact dyes. On the production end, the brand works primarily with manufacturers in Italy, particularly on shoes and bags that require factories specializing in non-leather production.

The Bad

But although Stella McCartney does most of her production in Italy, the designer was recently linked with sweatshops due to her high-profile partnership with Adidas to provide U.K. team uniforms for the 2012 London Olympics.

According to a March article in the Observer, workers at Bangladeshi factories for Adidas, Nike, and Puma are “beaten, verbally abused, underpaid, and overworked” under sweatshop-like conditions. And earlier this month, anti-sweatshop group Play Fair released a report called Fair Games?, which calls out Adidas for using sweatshop labor in supplier factories in China, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines.

Adidas tells a different story in its 2011 progress report, also released earlier this month. In it, the company states that all London 2012 Adidas products and services are being sourced and manufactured according to the guidelines set forth by the Olympics organizing committee. Adidas also released a 10-page response to the Play Fair report, disputing most of the claims and reasserting its commitment to supply chain transparency.

Regardless of who is “right” in this debate, Adidas has long been scrutinized by human rights groups for its ethical and environmental practices, and Stella McCartney’s long-standing partnership with the brand, both for the Olympics project and with her Adidas by Stella McCartney collection, calls into question her own commitments to ethics and sustainability.

The Questionable

McCartney is to be applauded for her personal commitment to animal rights issues, but has her sustainability work really earned her the title of eco-fashion industry “queen?” In the media, she often rejects the label, like in this quote from Styleist:

“It’s not very sexy sounding, is it,” she retorted recently at a Neiman Marcus shopping event in San Francisco when it was suggested that she is the face of sustainable luxury. “We’ve never shouted about it, and until recently no one has really mentioned it except for journalists. If anything, people would ridicule us when it came up!” 

Other times, she seems to embrace it, like in this quote from Thread NY:

Eco-friendly fashion is something I’ve always felt strongly about. You have to create demand so the customer base will grow. We’ve been doing organic for years in my own collection, in my lingerie and with the Adidas collaboration. We touch on it across the board. I think it’s a bit more sincere to do that. It’s part and parcel for us as a brand.

But on the Stella McCartney website, the language around sustainable practices is limited and vague. Under a short section titled “Stella McCartney & the Environment,” the company says that it uses a clean energy provider in its stores, offsets its carbon footprint using carbonneutral.com, and books its taxi journeys through an environmentally friendly car service. Compared to the corporate social responsibility sections of other major fashion brands, these seem like token efforts. And while making a bag out of faux leather instead of real leather is certainly kinder to animals, is it necessarily a more sustainable approach? We’re not sure.

Whether or not Stella fully embraces her place in the eco-fashion limelight, her name and celebrity give her the unique position of being able to affect industry-wide change, particularly in her partnerships with Adidas and the 2012 Olympics. Stella frequently says that her business is not perfect: “When we can make things better, we do… (but) if we were too extreme it would get in the way of my job,” she told Above.

To many in the eco-fashion world, statements like that sound like somewhat of a cop-out, especially coming from someone with as many resources as McCartney. What this world needs is an eco-fashion spokesperson who will step up to the plate and commit to sustainable and ethical principles in a more legitimate and all-encompassing way.

SEE ALSO:

Behind the Label: H&M’s Conscious Collection

Behind the Label: Levi Strauss’ E-Valuate Program

Behind the Label: TOMS’ One for One Campaign

Behind the Label: Puma’s Vision and Clever Little Bag

Behind the Label: Anthropologie’s Made In Kind

Read more Behind the Label here.

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Hormone disrupting chemicals, found by Greenpeace, can affect immune systems and alter sexual development.

Greenpeace recently reported that clothing items bearing the logos of 14 global brands – including Adidas, H&M, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch – have been found to contain nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), chemicals that can break down to form the hormone-disrupting substance nonylphenol (NP). Just this morning, Reuters released the news that Nearly 300 Cambodian workers fell sick this week at a garment factory producing goods for Swedish fashion brand H&M.

“Workers smelled something bad coming from the shirts,” said 26-year-old Norn Leakhena, a worker at the factory.

Greenpeace also reports in their findings that “Of the 78 articles of clothing bought and manufactured in locations all over the world, two thirds (52) tested positive for these chemicals – demonstrating that the use and release of these substances is a global problem affecting the entire textile industry, and further reinforcing the findings of the first Dirty Laundry Report, published 6 weeks ago.”

We caught up with Tommy Crawford, Communications Manager for Greenpeace International to help us break down what this means for us in terms of personal as well as ecological safety.

Are the hormone disrupting chemicals coming from finishes on the clothes?
Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) are used as surfactants in textile production. They subsequently break down into the toxic nonylphenol (NP) in the manufacturing process in wastewater discharges, as well as when finished clothes are washed by the consumers. This means that the persistent, hormone-disrupting NPs end up predominately in rivers and waterways in the countries of production but also in the countries of sale – including countries where use of the parent compounds (NPEs) is banned.

Would you say these are brands targeted mostly at a younger demographic who could care less about toxic clothing?
Toxic chemicals are a concern for everyone, regardless of their age. Greenpeace is not looking to discourage people from buying these brands, but we are interested in empowering their consumers to challenge these brands to produce their clothes in a way that does not come with a high price for people and the environment. A toxic-free future is possible, and concerned and empowered consumers have already played a massive role in convincing Nike and Puma to commit to the total elimination of all hazardous chemicals from their production by watching and sharing the campaign video and signing the petition. Over 600 supporters and activists even took part in the world’s biggest coordinated striptease to send a clear message to the brands to “Detox” our future.

The Greenpeace report says that chemicals are entering waterways and altering organisms. Why should we care?
We should care as we are talking about very problematic toxic chemicals entering into our water and our environment and having harmful and often unknown impacts. Chemicals that have no safe levels. Chemicals that stay in our environment for a long time (persistent), build up in the food chain (bioaccumulative), and that are hormone disrupting and toxic.

The substances Nonylphenol ethoxolates (NPEs) that we found in the clothes breakdown into the toxic nonylphenol (NP) once released into sewage treatment plants or directly into rivers (such as in manufacturing wastewaters, or during normal washing by consumers). NPs have the ability to mimic natural estrogen hormones. Scientific studies have found that exposure to NP can lead to altered sexual development in some organisms, particularly fish and other aquatic organisms. Lab testing on animal cells has also observed NP impacting immune system cells. Many of these effects can occur at relatively low levels.

With 13 countries involved in the supply chain for all these tested brands, how can they be regulated to ensure change? Is it too big a project?
No it is not. Suppliers in all these 13 countries are supplying big international clothing brands. By campaigning on the clothing brands, urging them to take responsibility for the toxic discharges in the manufacture of their clothes and becoming part of the solution by cleaning up their supply chains we can witness positive results for people and the environment in all production countries. It is not an impossible task, we have already seen both Puma and Nike committing to a toxic-free future by 2020.

Following its commitment last Wednesday Nike immediately took measures to start the elimination of NPEs in their supply chain by informing all of their suppliers around the world that NPEs need to be eliminated. Nike immediately moved NPEs from their list of ‘future restricted substances during manufacture’ to their existing list of ‘restricted substances during manufacture.’ This means that by encouraging the brands to commit to creating a toxic-free world, we can bring about positive and widespread change in all the countries of manufacture – very important for all the millions of people living in the countries of production who are dependent on rivers and other waterways for their drinking water.

Will you be checking back with Puma and Nike regarding their commitment to change?
Yes, both companies have publicly committed to come back with a Plan of Action with a road map detailing how they will get to zero discharges of hazardous chemicals by 2020. Nike, for example, wrote last week in its public commitment: ”Within eight weeks Nike Inc. will announce it’s action plan for the goal of eliminating hazardous chemicals within our supply chain addressing transparency, chemical management, including how we will address the need for industry disclosure in line with the right to know principles and a time-line for the highest priority hazardous chemicals.” Puma has also committed to publishing an action plan detailing how they will deliver their commitment within the next eight weeks.

Greenpeace will be closely watching this process and reviewing the plans of action to ensure they will indeed lead to the brands and their suppliers achieving toxic-free production by 2020.

Images: Greenpeace

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Adidas’ global strategy includes Better Cotton and a host of other environmental initiatives.

According to Sustainable Business Oregon, Adidas AG  has announced a global strategy to reduce its environmental footprint by 15% by 2015. A big portion of the change will come from utilizing sustainable cotton as part of the Better Cotton Initiative, increasing by 40%  all its cotton consumption by 2015 before going all in by 2018.

Frank Henke, Adidas’ director of social and environmental affairs, told Sustainable Business Oregon in an interview: “We think that supporting this approach helps us to mainstream the sustainability agenda within the global cotton market.”

As a founding member of the BCI, Adidas, as well as other well-known brands including Levi’s, Gap, and Marks And Spencer aim to reduce the usage of pesticides used in traditional cotton farming as well as employ effective means of tending crops with efficient water use, crop rotation and sound working conditions.

Better Cotton is not to be confused with sustainable cotton, fair trade cotton or organic cotton, designations specific to cotton produced without pesticides, genetic modification, or with fair labor involved, yet Better Cotton accounts for 1.3% of global cotton production and includes pieces of each. The main incentive for Adidas to lessen their carbon footprint is to grow cotton in a way that will help alleviate the stress on the local environment and improve the livelihoods and welfare of farming communities.

Other environmental reductions Sustainable Business Oregon highlights include Adidas incorporating a 50 percent reduction in the amount of colors used within the Adidas Sports Performance division by 2015, excluding colors required by clubs outfitted by the brand, A 10 percent to 15 percent drop in energy emissions by product output at core suppliers by 2015, a 20 percent drop in energy consumption, 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions, 20 percent water savings per employee and 25 percent waste reduction per employee by 2015.

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A few years ago, “eco fashion” became the hottest buzzword. The media in particular loved it and used every opportunity available to position it as the hottest trend. Recall those “Green is the New Black” headlines everywhere? Fast forward to today, and we know that eco fashion is definitely not a trend. It is a movement, and one that is taking the world by storm.

How so? Well for starters, a growing number of designers are now sourcing more sustainable fabrics than a few years ago, and the variety and quantity of those fabrics has grown out of this demand. An increasing number of brands and retailers are now engaged in ethical sourcing, and are working with their suppliers to create benchmarks and standards. Many companies now understand the benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR), even if their product or service is not “green”.

Organic Exchange (OE) offers more evidence of this eco fashion movement. According to their Organic Cotton Market Report, global sales of organic cotton apparel and textiles has grown by $1 billion in 2009, which amounts to a 35 percent increase over 2008. And at the same time that organic cotton sales have grown, overall cotton clothing and home textiles sales have shrunk by seven percent.

However, the rise of organic cotton has been steady for nearly a decade – on average by 40 percent each year since 2001. You just didn’t hear much about it because it wasn’t deemed important enough by mainstream media and industry. But that seems to be changing.

Organic Exchange estimates that the organic cotton market will continue to grow at this steady pace of 20-40 percent – both this year and next, to about $6 billion; and that the organic cotton market has been driven largely by consumer interest in “green” products, and by retailers and companies looking to offer more organic options.

So just who are the top organic cotton buyers from 2009 according to the OE report? You might be shocked to learn that it’s some of the biggest names in retail, including Nike, Walmart and Adidas.

But really, this isn’t all that surprising when you consider the report Exporting Textiles: March to Sustainability, that recently profiled the top brands and retailers who are implementing environmental sustainability throughout their global supply chains. Among the 19 companies profiled are once again, Nike, Walmart and Adidas! So what exactly are these companies doing to be given such accolades? Let’s take a look.

Adidas adheres to the ISO14001 standard and has an internal environmental benchmarking assessment that they use to collect data from their suppliers. Their top three sustainability priorities are embedding environmental sustainability across the business, effectively managing business risks and social compliance in the supply chain, and extending engagement internally and externally.

Walmart, as we all know, has issued their Sustainability Index, which asks their suppliers a series of questions as they relate to social and environmental practices. They also carry GOTS certification on organic textiles (although questionable to what degree) and their focus on energy efficiency is now shifting toward their suppliers.

Nike uses a few internal tools such as Material Analysis Tool (MAT) and Considered Index to evaluate its life cycle impacts. They have a water program, and have integrated energy efficiency practices at supplier factories.

According to this report, which focuses primarily on energy efficiency, carbon emissions, water and chemical footprint as well as logistics, these three companies rank in the top 5 (Levi Strauss & Co. and Marks & Spencer round out the list).

And so the evidence is mounting. It becomes clearer every day that eco fashion is a movement, and one that is gaining solid ground. I look forward to actively watching as more and more of the big brands and retailers move toward increased sustainability, motivated by people like us who demand quality and ethics from the products we choose to buy.

Image: adifansnet

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