Fashion for Good unites 14 leading brands to transform footwear production, tackling waste and circularity challenges with its ‘Closing the Footwear Loop’ initiative.
The global footwear industry is facing a reckoning. With more than 20 billion pairs of shoes produced annually and nearly 90 percent ending up in landfills, the environmental toll of modern footwear is staggering. The average shoe contains upwards of 60 different components — a mix of fabrics, plastics, rubber, and adhesives — making them incredibly difficult to recycle. As sustainability becomes a non-negotiable pillar of fashion, a coalition of industry leaders is stepping up to confront this growing crisis.
Fashion for Good, a global initiative driving sustainability and innovation in fashion, has launched its most ambitious footwear project to date: Closing the Footwear Loop. Bringing together 14 of the industry’s leading brands, the initiative seeks to dismantle the current “take-make-dispose” model and replace it with a circular system.
“’Closing the Footwear Loop’ represents our most ambitious effort yet to reimagine how we design, use, and dispose of shoes,” Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good, said in a statement. “By bringing together 14 leading brands, we’re not just addressing a challenge — we’re creating a blueprint for systemic change.”
The effort comes at a critical time. According to the European Commission, footwear alone accounts for 1.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the entire aviation industry. Unlike apparel, which has seen significant advancements in circularity, footwear remains largely dependent on virgin materials and lacks viable recycling pathways. Fashion for Good’s initiative intends to change that.
By 2025, the project aims to map out the entire European footwear waste stream in collaboration with Circle Economy, providing a detailed analysis of volumes, materials, rewearability, and recyclability. This will inform the creation of a circular footwear design roadmap developed with Circular.Fashion, outlining best practices for material selection, durability, recyclability, repairability, and responsible chemical management. The final phase will focus on validating new end-of-life solutions through real-world trials, with the goal of industry-wide adoption of circular footwear materials by 2026.
The brands involved in Closing the Footwear Loop include Adidas, Deichmann, Dr. Martens, the Footwear Innovation Foundation (affiliated with FDRA), Inditex, Lululemon, On, Otto Group, Puma, Reformation, Target, Tommy Hilfiger, Vivobarefoot, and Zalando.
While many brands have begun experimenting with sustainable materials such as bio-based leathers and fully recyclable sneaker soles, the broader challenge remains systemic. Without a unified industry approach to collection, recycling, and design principles, most sustainability efforts remain fragmented. This is what Fashion for Good aims to resolve — creating not just brand-level change but an industry-wide framework for circularity.
The initiative builds upon Fashion for Good’s previous work in footwear sustainability, particularly its Pioneering the Future of Footwear program, launched last August. That project identified four key pillars, design, materials, end-of-use, and traceability, that require immediate attention to move the industry toward circularity. Closing the Footwear Loop seeks to bring those learnings into action.
This latest push also aligns with growing regulatory pressure on the fashion industry. The European Union has been tightening its stance on textile and footwear waste, with new legislation expected to enforce extended producer responsibility (EPR) requirements, compelling brands to take greater accountability for the full lifecycle of their products.
For consumers, the shift toward circular footwear could redefine the way they engage with shoes. Brands are already experimenting with rental models, refurbishment programs, and buy-back schemes to extend product lifespans. However, without scalable infrastructure for collection and recycling, even the best-designed sustainable shoe risks becoming waste.
By fostering collaboration among some of the most influential players in the industry, Fashion for Good is not just advancing a sustainability initiative — it is attempting to rewire the entire footwear system. If successful, the project could lay the foundation for a future where the end of a shoe’s life does not mean the end of its materials, but rather the beginning of a new cycle of production and use.
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