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The shoemaking industry has always been a severely affected area of environmental pollution. In order to solve the environmental pollution problem caused by the industry, driven by the national "dual carbon" goal in recent years, shoe companies have embarked on the path of a green economy, announcing carbon reduction plans and launching environmentally friendly biodegradable fabric products. The industry is accelerating its transformation towards environmental protection and low-carbon direction, as reported by Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation.

Various brands are actively developing environmentally friendly fabrics. The picture shows the series of eco-friendly shoes launched by Allbirds.

Shoe companies accelerating green transformation

Every time there is a season change, I feel like there is a lack of beautiful shoes in the shoe cabinet. "After the 1990s, consumer Xiao Li always has this problem. Once the shoes are out of season or worn out, he doesn't want to wear them anymore. Therefore, after a crazy" buy and buy "campaign, new shoes accumulate more and more, but old shoes are forgotten in the corner. Nowadays, there are not a few people like Xiao Li who consume excessively. The rapidly changing fashion trend continues to drive consumers to make purchases, but the increasing pile of old clothes also causes environmental pollution and resource waste.

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, currently, the textile and clothing industry has become the world's second largest polluting industry after the oil industry. How to resolve the pollution dilemma caused by the industry has become a topic that every enterprise needs to deeply consider.

To address environmental issues, shoe brands both domestically and internationally are actively exploring green development models. Including Crocs, UGG, Dr Foreign shoe brands, including Martens and Allbirds, have begun to establish ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) departments and launch sustainable products, as reported by Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation.

Recently, American internet celebrity sports shoe brand Allbirds announced that it will officially launch its first net zero carbon shoe "M0.0NSHOT" at the Global Fashion Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark in June this year. It is reported that net zero carbon shoes refer to the shoes that mainly use negative carbon materials. The carbon absorbed by these materials during the production process offsets the carbon emissions from other environments such as manufacturing and transportation. These include negative carbon regenerated merino wool upper, negative carbon regenerated sugarcane based foam midsole, negative carbon bioplastics eyelets, and packaging made of negative carbon green polyethylene from sugarcane.

In China, many companies also choose to start with materials and integrate the concept of environmental protection and low-carbon into their products. In November last year, Tebu Group released the brand's first Mashs Balance low-carbon and environmentally friendly concept running shoe, the "360-ECO". The shoe uses palm oil as the main raw material instead of oil used in previous production. The 41 size "360-ECO" running shoe can only reduce carbon emissions by 212 grams, with a carbon reduction rate of 81%; The 2022 ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) report released by Anta Group states that its brands such as Anta, FILA, and Disant are actively developing environmentally friendly fabrics, with multiple product lines using recycled or renewable materials; Li Ning pays more attention to the innovative application of environmentally friendly materials, and has tried to make new environmentally friendly fabrics from old clothes, waste newspapers, and cola bottles, which has received unanimous praise from the market. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

Sustainable development model has a long way to go

In addition to the spontaneous actions of enterprises, in recent years, the introduction of various policies has also promoted the transformation and upgrading of the industry towards energy-saving, low-carbon, and green direction. Nowadays, the concept of green development has become a consensus among enterprises.

In June 2021, the China Textile Industry Federation issued the "Guiding Opinions on Green Development of the Textile Industry during the 14th Five Year Plan", proposing four goals and five key tasks for green development of the textile industry. In June 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and five other departments issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High Quality Development of Light Industry. The opinion mentions the need to increase the source substitution of low (no) volatile organic compounds (VOCs) content raw and auxiliary materials in industries such as leather making, shoe making, printing ink, furniture, etc., promote low volatile lead-free organic solvent processes and equipment, and accelerate the formulation and revision of limit standards for toxic and harmful chemical substances in products. After China clearly put forward the goal of "striving to reach the peak of carbon by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060", enterprises have also set up special sustainable development committees to take sustainable development as a long-term responsibility and goal. However, the industry also faces some pressure in promoting energy conservation and emission reduction.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the textile and clothing industry has a long industrial chain, including raw material production, product design, spinning, printing and dyeing, transportation, retail, recycling, and other links, which generate certain carbon emissions. It is not easy to achieve low-carbon transformation. From the perspective of research and development, due to the higher technical requirements for producing environmentally friendly materials, the research and development cycle of environmentally friendly series products is often longer than ordinary products, which means an increase in production costs and time costs. "The high cost of low-carbon and environmental protection development of surface accessories has led to certain difficulties in the design and application of footwear and clothing. For the mass footwear and clothing market, due to the high cost of promotion, there is no mainstream consumption trend." Cheng Weixiong, an independent analyst in the footwear and clothing industry and founder of Shanghai Liangqi brand management Co., Ltd., said.

In addition, in terms of market demand, although domestic and foreign brands have continuously invested a lot of energy and budget in sustainable technology applications, raw material acquisition, social responsibility, and other aspects, there are still doubts whether the concept of sustainable development can truly make consumers pay.

Many consumers have previously questioned the high consumption threshold for environmentally friendly products. Netizen Coca Cola stated that she has a crush on an eco-friendly shoe. The salesperson told her that the biggest selling point of this shoe is the addition of cork material to the upper material, which looks like a red wine bottle stopper, causing her to question it. A regular shoe sells for 200 yuan, but with the addition of cork material, it becomes an environmentally friendly product for 500 yuan. This makes me wonder if the concept of environmental protection is really a gimmick. If environmentally friendly products mean high prices, who is willing to actively use them

In the eyes of industry insiders, the green and low-carbon transformation is indeed the future development trend of the industry, but shoe companies cannot use environmental protection and low-carbon as marketing gimmicks to raise product prices. Enterprises need to conduct demand research based on their own user groups, develop corresponding low-carbon and environmentally friendly products, and apply functional auxiliary materials according to user needs. In marketing promotion and price strategy sorting, they should be more rational and pragmatic, and cannot set too high a threshold based on user clothing and matching. "Cheng Weixiong said, according to the Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.