When it comes to clothing, you don't have to compromise on performance or style when choosing sustainable and eco-friendly fabrics, with brands such as Nike, adidas, Brooks and Ronhill making significant progress in this area.
When it comes to shoes, performance footwear has a longer way to go in becoming more sustainable, but select brands have made great strides in developing shoe uppers using recycled yarns and knit fabrics. Salomon are leading the way in sustainable running shoes with their fully recyclable Index.01 road running shoe.
Brand Initiatives
adidas X Parley | End Plastic Waste
Since 2015, adidas has partnered with Parley as a key eco-innovation collaborator, to explore and pioneer ways to create a plastic free ocean. This forward thinking partnership introduced the first performance sportswear developed entirely from ocean plastic waste. Many of adidas' iconic products are made with PRIMEBLUE: a performance fabric that contains partly Parley Ocean Plastic or PRIMEGREEN: a performance fabric which contains no virgin plastic. These fabrics play a significant role in supporting their efforts to end plastic waste.
Brooks | Running Responsibly
One of Brooks' key focuses is sustainable consumption through greater use of recycled or renewable materials, the elimination of manufacturing waste, and transition to a circular producton. Brooks use recycled polyester in their apparel and biodegradable midsoles in their footwear. The focus to reduce the use of polyester and EVA, used in the upper mesh and midsole respectively, led Brooks to develop BioMoGo DNA midsole foam which degrades 50 times faster in landfill than EVA foam.
HOKA One One | Unifi REPREVE Yarn
In selected trail shoes, including the Challenger and Torrent, HOKA uses REPREVE Yarn, derived from post-consumer plastic waste including plastic bottles, to construct shoe uppers.
Inov8 | Durability. Impact. Support.
One of Cumbrian-based brand Inov8's key focuses is durability: extending the active life of products. Inov8 carried out pioneering work with The National Graphene Institute at The University of Manchester to put Graphene (the world’s strongest material) into some of their flagship products, to make their uppers and outsoles much harder-wearing and longer-lasting than most. They also partner with charity ReRun to distribute shoes to those in need.
Nike | Move To Zero
Nike’s journey towards zero carbon footprint focuses on sustainable manufacturing processes and material sourcing.
Nike Flyknit, Nike Flyleather, Nike Air soles, Polyester and Nylon are all made using recycled content while all cotton used is certified organic, recycled or Better Cotton sourced. Any Nike clothing labelled as sustainable features over 50% recycled content with many products featuring 100%, while shoes have at least 20% recycled content by weight.
Ronhill
Many products in Ronhill's clothing and accessories range are made from recycled polyester (either 100% or in part). Look for the green recycled and part recycled icons to tell them apart. Further to using recycled materials, Ronhill are a member of the Fair Wear Foundation, working to achieve fair working conditions in the garment industry worldwide.
Salomon | Play minded program
Salomon's 'Play minded program' consists of four key focus areas, one of which 'Mind the toys' homes in on reducing the environmental impact of all their products, using several tools to measure and improve the materials and carbon footprint. Salomon's fully recyclable Index.01 road running shoe is an exciting step in Salomon’s mission towards a circular product lifecycle.