The manufacturing of footwear uses significant amounts of water, chemicals, and energy while creating dangerous water and air pollutants.
Made from multiple materials such as leather, textiles, and petroleum-chemical-based synthetics, the footwear industry can make significant changes to its production model to help increase its sustainability rating.
The footwear supply chain is often complex, with many supply chain actors, and traceability and transparency can be challenging. Some supply chains have been associated with materials linked with deforestation, pollution, and social exploitation.
There are more than 20 billion pairs manufactured each year. With footwear becoming a disposable item and no mass solution for end-of-life disposal, millions of tonnes of footwear are sent to landfill. Many of the footwear components are not biodegradable, and this presents a significant challenge for disposal.
Our goal at Eurofins is to provide services that bring transparency, measurement, and metrics to footwear supply chains. Eurofins has two footwear competence centres providing specialist services to the footwear sector.
- Traceability of materials through supply chain mapping – to identify raw material sources and understand the risks
- Leather Working Group audits leather manufacturing operations against the Leather Working Group ESG standard
- Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) for a detailed understanding of manufacturing impacts
- Chemical testing of footwear materials and the whole product
- Chrome VI testing, audits, and digital risk profiler
- MRSL testing of chemicals against various standards
- Biodegradability and disintegration testing of many materials (various standards)
- Social audits of manufacturing operations
- Sustainability manufacturing strategies
All Services
Industries supported
- Sustainable Chemical manufacturing
- Sustainable Construction
- Sustainable Cosmetics and Personal Care
- Sustainable cotton
- Sustainable detergents
- Sustainable Electrical and Electronics
- Sustainable Farming
- Sustainable Food
- Sustainable Footwear
- Sustainable Furniture
- Sustainable hygiene, paper and pulp
- Sustainable Leather
- Sustainable Paper and Packaging
- Sustainable Textiles
- Sustainable Toys