The initiative aims to address key obstacles in the industry, including the lack of end-of-life infrastructure for footwear, complex multi-material designs, and the need for a unified approach to circularity. With the global footwear industry producing 23.8 billion pairs of shoes annually, a staggering 90% of these shoes end up in landfills. Each pair contains an average of 60 different components, such as fabrics, plastic, rubber, and adhesives, which complicates recycling efforts.
Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good, emphasized the project’s significance in her statement: “Closing the Footwear Loop represents our most ambitious effort yet to reimagine how we design, use, and dispose of shoes. By bringing together 14 leading brands, we’re not just addressing a challenge—we’re creating a blueprint for systemic change.”
As part of the project’s roadmap, by 2025, Fashion for Good will collaborate with Circle Economy to create a detailed map of European footwear waste streams, gathering data on volumes, materials, rewardability, and recyclability. This map will serve as the foundation for the next phase—developing a circular footwear design roadmap in collaboration with circular. Fashion. This roadmap will outline principles for material selection, durability, recyclability, reparability, and responsible chemical management.
The final phase of the project will focus on validating end-of-life innovations through trials and impact assessments, aiming for widespread industry adoption by 2026. This initiative will also include recycled material outputs, further advancing sustainable practices in footwear production.
The project involves key industry stakeholders, including Adidas, DEICHMANN, Dr. Marten, Footwear Innovation Foundation (affiliated with FDRA), Inditex, lululemon, ON, Otto Group, Puma, Reformation, Target, Tommy Hilfiger, Vivobarefeet, and Zalando. Together, these brands will work to ensure the success of the project and bring lasting changes to the footwear industry.
Fashion for Good’s ‘Closing the Footwear Loop’ builds on the organization’s previous efforts in footwear sustainability, including the Pioneering the Future of Footwear program, which was launched in August 2024. That initiative focused on four essential work streams—design, materials, end of use, and traceability—that are critical to improving footwear circularity.
Through this project, Fashion for Good hopes to inspire systemic change across the industry, creating a more sustainable, circular model for the future of footwear.