The Hyperboot, now being backed by Nike, aids athlete recovery by driving heat into leg muscles.
CREDIT: NIKE/HYPERICE
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02Global News
Highlights from around the world of footwear. For news on shoes every day, go to footwearbiz.com, the best news website in the business.
04 Industry & Innovation
Details of innovations from suppliers and service providers across the globe.
MATERIALS, MANUFACTURING & INNOVATION
06 Attention to detail
Uppers matter for technical and aesthetic reasons, Dr Naveed Anwar of adidas argues.
Leather for performance
Innovation
Upper hand
President Trump wants tariffs to help “supercharge domestic manufacturing” in the US, with automation playing a key role. Previous attempts to put automation into footwear factories raises concerns.
ADVERTISER’S INDEX
26Ecco vows to battle back
A fire in May destroyed Ecco Leather’s beamhouse in the Netherlands. The company is committed to resuming operations as soon as it can, but the impact on its vertically integrated business model will be severe.
30Data burden
Tiny companies in Italy’s footwear manufacturing industry are bearing an unfair share of the weight when it comes to satisfying sustainability regulations.
18Recovery time
Nike is backing a boot that Hyperice developed to democratise athlete recovery technology.
22Tariff turbulence
Industry commentator Stuart Cleaver offers his perspective on the state of the industry as it moves from a broadly positive situation in 2024 into the turmoil that tariffs are bringing in 2025.
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Global news
UK The British Footwear Association (BFA) has celebrated the appointment of several of its members to the Royal Warrant list by King Charles III - in particular Gaziano & Girling, which manufactures its shoes in Kettering and which has received its first warrant. Alongside it, longstanding BFA members Tricker’s, Crockett & Jones, John Lobb, Loake and Barbour have either retained or renewed their Royal Warrants. This permits the companies to use the Royal Arms in connection with their businesses.
France Figures that industry body Alliance France Cuir has shared indicate that footwear exports from France in the first quarter of 2025 reached just over €1.3 billion in value. This represents a fall of 4% year on year. In terms of shoes, boots and other footwear coming into France in the three-month period, the value Alliance France Cuir published (based on data from the country’s customs authorities) was almost €2.1 billion. This figure was flat with the one for the same period in 2024.
Germany Sports footwear and apparel group Puma has reported revenues of just over €2 billion for the first quarter of 2025, down by 1.3% compared to the same period last year. Chief finance officer, Markus Neubrand, said that, to address challenges such as increasing costs and narrower margins, he said the group was concentrating on “controllable factors”. These include a “cost-efficiency programme” that has led to the loss of 500 jobs across the group.
Switzerland Former chief executive of footwear group Ecco, Panos Mytaros, is to join another footwear group, Bata. Mr Mytaros stepped down from his role at Ecco in December. He had been with the group for 30 years, serving first as director of its tannery in Indonesia, then as managing director of Ecco Leather. In 2021, he moved to Ecco headquarters in Denmark to become group chief executive. He will take up the same role at Bata in September, replacing Sandeep Kataria.
Portugal A new collective labour agreement for Portugal’s footwear sector has come into force, signed by APICCAPS and the Federation of Trade Unions of Textile, Wool, Clothing, Footwear and Fur Workers of Portugal (FESETE). The agreement covers 42,000 workers and 1,900 companies. The agreement includes a 3% salary increase, a restructuring of job categories, and updates to working conditions.
The Netherlands The chief commercial officer of sports group Mammut, Felix Muennich, has joined footwear group Deckers Brands. He will be Deckers’ general manager for Europe and will be based in Amsterdam. Mr Muennich is no stranger to footwear retail, having spent more than 10 years in various commercial roles at Nike before moving to Mammut. Earlier in his career, he also worked at Umbro.
Serbia High-end outdoor footwear brand Aku has confirmed that it produced 230,000 pairs of shoes and boots in 2024. This figure represents a fall of 26.8% compared to the previous year. In 2023, Aku took the decision to close a manufacturing facility it ran in Serbia. It now makes its products in Italy and Romania. The closure of the factory in Serbia means Aku now has 248 employees, down by almost 40% year on year. Its turnover in 2024 was €22.9 million, a fall of 23.7%.
US Athletic footwear retailer Foot Locker has reported revenues of just under $1.8 billion for the first quarter of its current business year, the period ending May 3, 2025. This figure represents a fall of 4.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On releasing the figures, chief executive Mary Dillon said the group had experienced “softer traffic trends globally”. Sporting goods retail group Dick’s announced on May 15 that it will acquire Foot Locker.
Japan Footwear brand Camper has partnered with Japanese fashion label Issey Miyake to launch a new shoe collection called Peu Form. The design builds on Camper’s existing Peu model, known for its wide toe box and ergonomic outsole. It incorporates Issey Miyake’s “piece of cloth” concept, an approach developed by the designer in 1997 that involves creating garments from a single piece of fabric.
Canada Cold-climate footwear brand Baffin has completed a project to set up 100 boot-cleaning stations for hikers on the Bruce Trail. The main trail covers around 900 kilometres from Queenstown, near Niagara Falls, to Tobermory at the end of the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. Because the spread of invasive species of plants is one of the top threats to biodiversity in the region, Baffin decided in 2023 that it would set up stations along the route, with brushes for walkers so that they can clean the soles of their boots.
Bangladesh Figures from Bangladesh indicate that leather-sector exports reached a value of more than $1.1 billion in the financial year just ended, the period from July 2024 to June 2025. This represents a 10.2% increase compared to the previous financial year. The figure for exports of finished leather was $128.2 million, a fall of 10% year on year. Shipments of leathergoods brought in $352.6 million, a fall of 2.2%. Growth came from exports of leather footwear, which reached $672 million, an increase of 23.5% year on year.
Vietnam The country has agreed a new trade deal with the US. Under the agreement, importers of products, including apparel and footwear, from Vietnam will pay a tariff of 20%. When US president, Donald Trump, announced an initial round of tariffs on April 2, he imposed a level of 46% on Vietnam. As part of the new deal, the US has said it will double tariff rates to 40% for products trans-shipped through Vietnam. This means products manufactured in China, for example, and moved from there to Vietnam for export to the US will face the 40% rate.
Colombia Brazilian footwear companies are seeking to expand their presence in the Colombian market, and the latest edition of the Brazilian Footwear Trade Mission, an export promotion initiative organised by the Brazilian Footwear Industries Association (Abicalçados) in partnership with the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil), was held in mid-June in Bogotá. Thirty-three Brazilian brands participated.
China Across all categories, China exported 2.1 billion pairs of footwear in the first quarter of this year, bringing in export revenues of $10.25 billion. These figures represent only a slight fall in volume, 0.7%, but a substantial decline in value, 11.2% compared to the same period last year. The figures for leather shoes specifically show exports of 120 million pairs in the first quarter of 2025, bringing in almost $1.75 billion. This means an increase in volume of 1% but a fall of 2.3% in value.
Australia Adidas has confirmed it will no longer source kangaroo leather from Australia for its footwear. Chief executive Bjørn Gulden made the announcement at the company’s annual general meeting in May. The decision follows pressure from animal welfare groups, including an in-person appeal by Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy.
Industry&Innovation
Coats moves to acquire OrthoLite
Coats Group has reached a definitive agreement to acquire insole materials manufacturer OrthoLite. In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Coats gave an initial value of $770 million for the deal.
This could rise by a further $10 million depending on OrthoLite’s revenues in 2025. OrthoLite has confirmed that its open-cell foam technology brand Cirql is also part of the deal.
Coats said it believes bringing OrthoLite into the group will also offer the opportunity to make $20 million in annual cost savings by 2028. It expects to close the deal in the fourth quarter of this year.
Following its acquisition of Texon and Rhenoflex in 2022, Coats developed a strategy to become what it has called a “super tier-two supplier for footwear components”. It said its acquisition now of OrthoLite represented a “compelling strategic fit” and would accelerate this plan, “significantly strengthening the existing Coats footwear business through expansion into the attractive, high-growth premium insole segment”.
Group chief executive, David Paja, said the combination of Coats and OrthoLite was “fantastic news” for both companies and for the footwear industry. “It brings together two global leaders with a shared vision for innovation and sustainability,” he added.
For his part, OrthoLite founder and chief executive, Glenn Barrett, said the deal would provide a platform for OrthoLite and Cirql to continue to serve customers “with the most innovative and sustainable footwear components in the world”.
On inaugurates on-site micro-factory
Last year, ahead of the Paris Olympics, Swiss sports brand On presented LightSpray, a new performance shoe whose textile upper is made using an automated manufacturing process. In early July, the brand officially inaugurated its first LightSpray production facility in its headquarters in Zurich.
In the small-scale Industry 4.0 factory, four robots produce LightSpray uppers from a single 1,500 metre long filament. Similar to a 3D-printing process, it forms an upper in 3 minutes. The LightSpray models will thus be partially made in Switzerland.
Company founders Caspar Coppetti, David Allemann and Olivier Bernhard said that other such production facilities would be installed worldwide.
Forty years of partnership for Desma and ABB
Footwear technology developer Desma has paid tribute to automation specialist ABB. The two companies have now been partners for more than 40 years.
Desma said their joint story started in the 1980s when it began using robotics technology that ABB had adapted specially for shoe production. Soon after these beginnings, the two technology providers worked jointly on a successful project with adidas.
“In shoe factories, robots can take over tasks such as roughing, spraying release agents and applying adhesive with the highest precision,” Desma said.
Adidas harnesses additive manufacturing Adidas’ latest addition to its cooling range, the ClimaCool Laced shoe, has been designed and printed as a single piece, built layer by layer and blending upper and midsole elements through a single material.
The original ClimaCool shoe, revealed in September last year, was the company’s first exploration of the additive manufacturing process.
Insole portfolio
Coats Footwear has launched a comprehensive insole solutions portfolio. The new range offers insole products designed to meet the specific requirements of performance sports, lifestyle, outdoor, high-heeled and workwear footwear.
Products in the portfolio combine durability, comfort, breathability and advanced safety features, including electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection, to meet the technical demands of different footwear categories.
India manufacturing boost planned by ASICS
Japan-based athletic footwear and apparel brand ASICS will increase local manufacturing in India from 30% to 40% over the next few years to secure supply.
AI and sustainability to take centre stage
The International Union of Shoe Industry Technicians (UITIC) has said its forthcoming international congress will be “an unmissable event”.
This year, the UITIC International Technical Footwear Congress will take place for the 22nd time in its history. Shanghai will be the host city for the event, which will take place from August 31 to September 3. It will be jointly organised by the China Leather Industry Association.
Under the central theme of ‘competitiveness and sustainability in the era of artificial intelligence’, the event will aim to explore the transformation that AI and sustainability are bringing to the footwear industry.
UITIC president, Sergio Dulio, has revealed that more than half of the submitted papers that industry professionals submitted for consideration for the programme were about AI. “The papers give details of mature and exciting projects,” Mr Dulio said. “This is a breakthrough.”
It highlighted increasing adoption and experimentation of AI, UITIC said, particularly in the footwear design phase. Companies are recognising AI as “a strategic lever”, it added.
UITIC’s view is that shoe manufacturers will be able to put AI to good use in “rethinking the design process”, opening up what it called “unprecedented scenarios for creating innovative and competitive footwear”.
Alongside AI, it said sustainability is also “a key pillar”, and no longer “a regulatory constraint”. Companies recognise sustainability as “a strategic element for competitiveness”, Sergio Dulio explained .
New US-made boot marks shift in manufacturing
Footwear manufacturer Wolverine has introduced the Workshop Wedge, the first in a planned series of boots to be produced in the United States as part of a renewed focus on domestic manufacturing. The company, which has operated in the work boot sector for over 140 years, said the move reflects a long-term strategy to bring more production back to the US.
The new model is being made in Texas and combines locally and internationally sourced materials. Wolverine’s existing 1000 Mile Collection is already produced in Arkansas, and additional US-made styles from other brands within the Wolverine World Wide Inc. portfolio are expected to follow in the coming years.
Mike Maloney, chief product officer for the company’s Work Group, said that consumer demand played a key role in shaping the decision.
ItalianpartnertomakeCirqlmidsolesandoutsoles
Open-cell foam technology developer Cirql has announced a new strategic agreement with soling materials producer Frasson. Italy-based Frasson specialises in supercritical foaming and injection moulding for footwear components. Cirql said this new partnership would solidify its presence in Europe and will allow it to supply European footwear brands with “cutting-edge recycled polymer technology for high-performance midsoles and outsoles”.
As a result, Cirql’s recycled polymer (rTPU) will become more accessible for European customers to use in their products. Frasson will now be a key supplier and development partner. It has invested in machinery that will allow it to manufacture Cirql midsoles and outsoles.
Lenzing underpins circular’ footwear
Austrian fibre company Lenzing is aiming to grow its share in the footwear market following several launches that have touted the company’s suitability for the sector.
French running shoe brand Circle Sportswear worked with Lenzing for more than a year, selecting a Tencel Luxe filament for an upper, blended with 50% wool. The shoe is made of 75% natural materials, including a midsole that is 45% castor bean-based, and a biobased polymer outsole that does not shed microplastics. These developments were presented at the Future Fabrics Expo in London.
The move follows new government rules requiring quality certification for all imported and domestic footwear, prompting global brands to pause imports.
ASICS India managing director, Rajat Khurana, said the company is expanding local production to address the issue. Having reached the 30% local production threshold for 2024-25, ASICS is now allowed to open its own single-brand retail stores in India.
Innovation platform
A new non-profit organisation, the Footwear Innovation Foundation, has been launched in the US to support innovation in footwear design, manufacturing and sustainability.
Founded by senior figures from across the industry, the organisation will run accelerator programmes and collaborate with inventors, academics and brands to advance new concepts and technologies. It will also support the development of projects that aim to improve sustainability, regulatory alignment and production efficiency.
Assomac to play ‘to a system’ Italy’s industry body for manufacturers of machinery for footwear and leather, Assomac, has reported revenues for the sector of €575 million in 2024. This figure, which is still preliminary, represents a fall of 12% compared to the previous year.
Assomac president, Mauro Bergozza, said: “We must be ready to play to a system, otherwise we will remain on the margins of the global market.”
Brands support for WFSGI report
The World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) hosted a side event at the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May alongside members including adidas, Asics, Decathlon, Nike, On and Puma, to launch the Sporting Goods Physical Activity Impact Report: Moving the World Towards an Active Future.
The report underscores the urgent need to address physical inactivity, affecting over 1.8 billion adults and 81% of adolescents worldwide, WFSGI estimated.
The importance of uppers and linings
Naveed Anwar
Because the upper section of footwear represents the main visible part of a shoe, the upper components serve to define the appearance of the product. This is in addition to the important role the materials play in determining performance properties such as breathability, flexibility and weight.
Of course, materials matter because the selection the designers make for the uppers, their choice of leather, other natural fibres or synthetic textiles, will determine how breathable, how flexible and how light a shoe will be.
We have also seen many advances in the construction of footwear uppers. These, too, have provided performance improvements in aspects such as aerodynamics and targeted physiological support, which athletic shoes, in particular, require. The construction of a well-made upper section protects the feet and the environment around the feet.
Silver lining
Linings are the concealed part of footwear. They provide comfort and hygienic benefits. The lining of a shoe functions as a cushion for the foot, which creates
Many people overlook the significance of footwear uppers and linings, according to Dr Naveed Anwar, a senior manager in footwear design engineering at adidas. This article examines the essential functions of these components and demonstrates why industry experts should pay close attention to them.
a comfortable fit while minimising rubbing and the possible formation of blisters. For many millennia, lining materials have also provided insulation to help maintain a comfortable foot temperature in cold weather conditions.
Today, technologically advanced linings go further than this. They can bring moisture-wicking, anti-
Three new “everyday running” shoes from adidas. The company has said it is committed to providing the best footwear solutions for the many, not just for elite athletes.
ALL CREDITS: ADIDAS
microbial and other properties to shoes, offering advantages to wearers that include increased feet freshness and dryness.
This combination of comfort features, with functionality such as moisture management and temperature control in linings, creates superior wearability for shoes.
Trends and innovations
We see in the global footwear industry at the moment interesting trends that demonstrate the vital role that uppers and linings can play.
Sustainability is one such trend. For many years, the footwear industry has worked to develop lower-impact materials for uppers and linings in response to brands’ desire to be as sustainable as they possibly can be.
We have also seen smart textiles become integrated
into shoe linings, enabling users to track their foot health by collecting data about their pressure distribution and walking patterns, helping to flag up possible problems, including diabetes.
To return to the visibility that the upper gives to a shoe, this leans into the customisation of footwear. The market now shows increasing demand for customised shoes. Distinctive uppers enable customers to create products according to their individual requirements and tastes.
Therefore, the functional elements of shoe uppers and linings serve as essential components. They can go a long way towards determining shoe performance and user satisfaction. Deep understanding of their importance by industry professionals will enable companies to put in place better product development. In turn, this will lead to satisfied customers.
Everyday runners
Sports group adidas has launched a new footwear collection called Everyday Running. As the name suggests, it said it had designed and made the collection with ordinary running enthusiasts in mind.
It said it wanted to support and provide shoes for all runners, no matter how or why they run. It turned this into a dedicated collection because, according to adidas, more than half of everyday enthusiasts of running describe choosing shoes as “overwhelming and complex”.
Audience insight work that adidas has quoted suggests this community of runners “often feel overlooked”.
This market research work involved questioning 1,500 runners from the UK, Mexico and South Africa in May this year. It classed participants who run between one and four times per week as “everyday runners”.
Many of these people have little or no connection to organised events or a broader runner community. This is often because they feel they do not run consistently enough to engage in that way. In fact, the research found that nearly 25% of participants do not even refer to themselves as runners.
Adidas said it wanted to understand better why these people run and what their needs are. Its general manager for running, Alberto Uncini
Manganelli, said: “As the running community grows at the fastest rate ever, we are committed to providing the best footwear solutions for the many who run, for their own unique reasons, and require different benefits.”
In response to this challenge, the Everyday Running range comprises three styles, designed to meet the different needs of these runners.
The shoes are the Supernova Rise 2, which is aimed at runners looking for stability and support, the Adistar 4, which has a higher level of cushioning and shock absorption, and the Ultraboost 5, which offers a higher energy-return.
Upper construction and foot comfort are prominent features in the make-up of these running shoes. Because these products are aimed at the many, not the few, this proves that using quality materials in these parts of the shoe is fundamental. For example, adidas describes the Supernova Rise 2 as offering “cloud-like comfort in every stride”. Of the Adistar 4, it says the shoe gives runners “maximum cushioning”. And with regard to the Ultraboost 5, its description of the shoe highlights the role of the Primeknit upper. This technique involves knitting the upper of the shoe as a single piece rather than stitching different pieces together. This is what gives footwear like this running shoe “a flexible and comfortable fit”.
Left to right: the Supernova Rise 2, the Adistar 4 and the Ultraboost 5.
Shoes are a challenge for automation
In the toing and froing over the tariff turbulence of the first half of 2025, it was easy to miss one of the main objectives that US president, Donald Trump, trumpeted.
At a first earth-shaking announcement on April 2, he unveiled tariff rates on imports into the US from a long list of footwear-exporting trading partners. These numbers have changed several times since, but the initial figures were 54% for China, 49% for Cambodia, 46% for Vietnam, 37% for Bangladesh and 32% for Indonesia.
Reborn in the USA
The president said April 2 was “Liberation Day”. His reasoning was that this date would go down in history as the day on which industry in general in the US would be reborn. He said: “We will supercharge our
Shapes, materials and colours in sports shoe uppers change frequently; many of the components in their construction are soft. These factors make using automation to produce them a particular challenge.
domestic industrial base. More production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.” He went on to claim trading partners had been taking advantage of the US, “stolen our jobs [and] ransacked our factories”.
CREDIT: KEEN
Unlike many other sectors of the US economy, the footwear industry still has factories there. Manufacturers based on home soil produced around 25 million pairs of shoes and boots in 2024, according to industry body Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. Against this, though, shipments of shoes from China to the US reached almost 1.25 billion pairs in the same period, a volume that was around 50 times greater than domestic shoe production.
Footwear manufacturing in the US can expand, but it is difficult to imagine it could expand by 50 times and make up quickly for the product shortfall that could, in theory, occur if high tariff rates make imports from China and other Asian countries too expensive.
Outsource outreach
According to a senior figure in the global footwear industry, William Wong, the first instinct of at least some brands was to look not for new factory sites in the US, but for new overseas producing countries to
“ Automation requires production processes to be simple and easy to repeat millions of times. ”
outsource from. He received a spate of calls about this following the April 2 announcement. Hong Kong-based Mr Wong, who is president of the Global Footwear Sustainability Summit and a consultant to the Hong Kong Footwear Association, says that callers wanted to know where they should turn to to avoid the heaviest blows that the new tariff regime will deliver to footwear and most other products.
He mentions the Philippines and African countries as places shoe brands were interested in. But he has told the Wall Street Journal that Asian outsource footwear manufacturers are reluctant to invest in new operations in those geographies. It would take years to build up a big enough production base to meet the needs of US brands from there, he explains. Setting up a large-scale manufacturing business is “not like switching on or off the lights”, Mr Wong says. This could be discouraging news for political leaders intent on supercharging their domestic industrial base.
Automation’s appeal
Commentators quickly pointed to advanced technology and automation as a possible pathway to increasing shoe production in the US. But here, too, footwear manufacturers may find it difficult to make quick inroads. The recent lived experience of the industry could put doubts in many minds. Tom Fletcher, a former executive at a technology provider that worked with Nike on bringing footwear manufacturing back to North America, says that, even with advanced technology, he is certain reshoring shoe production will be expensive, slow and difficult.
Mr Fletcher was a senior vice-president at Flex, a Texas-based supplier of automated production technology. He began working with Nike in 2015. This followed Flex’s success in helping Apple set up production of some of its products in the US. Nike’s ambition was to set up a shoe production facility in Mexico with high levels of automation and for this to allow the Mexican site to produce tens of millions of pairs of athletic footwear per year by 2023. There was also hope that the Mexico factory could be a model for setting up similar facilities across the border in the US. But, by early 2019, the two partners had wound up the project.
Upper reaches
One of the biggest problems they encountered centred on automation requiring production processes to be simple and easy to repeat millions of times. By contrast, the shape, materials and colours in sports shoe uppers change very frequently. The softness of many of the
Keen’s Targhee IV hiking boot. The company began investing some years ago in a highly automated factory in Kentucky. It says that, in the face of widespread tariffs on imported shoes, the move puts it in a good position.
materials in a sports shoe represents another challenge.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal soon after Liberation Day, Tom Fletcher explained that it had taken the Flex team eight months to find a way of putting the Nike swoosh on shoe uppers using automation. And at the end of these eight months, Nike had already moved on to a new model for which Flex’s automated swoosh solution no longer worked.
Speaking now, Mr Fletcher says he still thinks highly automated, highscale production of sports shoes on US soil is possible. But he says Flex’s experience of trying to set this up with Nike had been “humbling, for sure”. If new attempts to do this are to be successful now, Mr Fletcher insists the companies involved will need to have “deep pockets and patience because it’s not going to happen fast”.
In a similar vein, rival brand adidas hailed an idea it called Speedfactory as “a new era in footwear creation”. It began constructing its first Speedfactory in Ansbach, near Nuremberg, in 2015. Its plan was to use automation to make shoes close to the European market. It was 20 years since adidas had made any shoes in its country of origin, Germany.
It soon announced that a second Speedfactory in Atlanta, Georgia, would do the same for its supply to markets in North America, adding that further Speedfactories would follow. But, by the end of the decade, adidas had called time on the Ansbach and Atlanta sites, moving the technology in which it had invested to partner factories in Asia.
Keen makes its own luck
In the face of this, it might be tempting to say that a decision Keen made several years ago to build a new factory in Kentucky with high levels of automation has proved fortunate. Luck had nothing to do with it, insists the Portland-based outdoor footwear brand’s chief operating officer, Hari Perumal. Around 2010, the company noticed that costs in China were rising, at a time when international shoe brands seemed to be increasingly dependent on Chinese factories for making their collections. Keen no longer sources any shoes from China. It has outsource manufacturing partners in Cambodia, Vietnam and India. Currently, these partners make twothirds of the company’s footwear. The other one-third of its products come from its own factories in Thailand, the Dominican Republic and, yes, the US.
Mr Perumal says the choice of location for the new factory, Shepherdsville, near Louisville, Kentucky is deliberate. From here, it can reach 80% of US consumers in two days by road or rail. It has a logistics facility nearby and several suppliers in the region, too. “It definitely puts us in a good position,” he concludes.
The famous Nike swoosh on the knitted-yarn upper of a Victory Elite FK running shoe. Partners at automation specialist Flex spent eight months figuring out how to use its technology apply the swoosh at an ill-fated manufacturing project in Mexico.
CREDIT: NIKE
Adidas opened Speedfactories in Germany and the US, using automation to produce shoes close to major markets in Europe and North America. By 2020 it had called time on the experiment.
CREDIT: ADIDAS
Re:Suede sneaker – part of Puma’s circular design drive. Made with zeology-tanned leather, hemp fibres and TPE outsoles, these shoes proved compostable in trials and are now commercially available.
CREDIT: PUMA
Biodegradablebydesign
To the average person, leather simply comes from the hide or skin of an animal. But there is a broader story: leather is a by-product of the meat and dairy industries. As long as humans continue to consume meat, hides and skins will remain a secondary outcome. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a by-product is “an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else”. Farmers do not raise livestock for hides, they raise them for food. Leather’s value lies not in its raw state, but in the durable, versatile products that can be crafted from it.
Historically, footwear has been one of leather’s most important uses, from full-coverage moccasins to today’s precision-made styles. For centuries, vegetable tanning was the dominant method. Then, in the late 19th century, chrome tanning emerged, revolutionising leather’s appearance, performance, and the way it was made. It took decades to become commercially viable, but it now accounts for around 85% of all leather globally. Still, the definition of leather can be limiting. ISO 15115:2019 defines it as a hide or skin with its original fibrous structure more or less intact, tanned to prevent decay, and which may or may not have its hair or wool removed. It has long been considered “stabilised forever”, a positive trait for durability. But if that were truly the
Despite its long history, leather is still widely misunderstood, especially in today’s search for sustainable, durable, and biodegradable materials. Its modern forms and innovations go far beyond the familiar image of traditional shoe leather, offering footwear brands valuable opportunities to strengthen their corporate image.
case, we would see far more ancient leather waste. In fact, most leather products break down over time, suggesting that biodegradability has always been part of the story – historically by circumstance, not design. That is changing. Today, biodegradability is no longer incidental. It is a central goal, shaped by growing expectations around environmental responsibility. The leather industry is now rethinking how materials behave across their full lifecycle, including how they return to the earth after use.
New approaches
From a technical standpoint, tanning processes remained largely unchanged for decades. The main alternative to chrome – glutaraldehyde – used to make chrome free “wet white” gained prominence more than 40 years ago, but even this is now under scrutiny from regulations such as REACH due to its potential sensitising and toxicological properties. While glutaraldehyde’s future is under review, the past five years have seen a marked acceleration in tanning innovation. One of the most significant developments is a shift in perspective: tanning is no longer viewed as a permanent fixative, but rather as a temporary stabilisation phase. Leather can deliver the required performance – flexibility, breathability, durability – throughout its useful life, then biodegrade under specific post-use conditions.
These new approaches are gaining traction, driven by chemical companies, tanneries, and forward-thinking brands. Biodegradability by design is no longer just a research ambition and it is starting to shape real-world production. While it may take time for these innovations to scale, the precedent is there: chrome tanning also began as a niche development before reshaping the entire industry. We are now at the start of a similar shift, one that redefines what leather can be, and what it can do for a more sustainable future.
Redefining leather’s environmental profile
As sustainability becomes a defining challenge for the leather industry, new tanning and retanning technologies are emerging to reduce environmental impact, increase biodegradability, and improve material traceability. From the use of natural minerals and agricultural byproducts to fermentation-based innovations, chemical suppliers and forward-thinking brands are working to align leather manufacturing with circular economy goals.
A notable development in recent years is Zeology, a metal-free tanning system developed by Royal Smit & Zoon. It uses zeolite, a naturally occurring mineral, as a replacement for traditional chrome and aldehyde tanning agents. The system is designed to retain key performance characteristics of leather, such as tensile strength and heat resistance, while addressing regulatory and environmental concerns.
Zeology-tanned leather is fully compatible with standard retanning and finishing processes and meets metal-free standards under frameworks such as REACH and ZDHC. According to life cycle assessment (LCA) data, the system offers measurable environmental benefits, including lower ecotoxicity and improved wastewater quality. It can also simplify
waste management by reducing the generation of hazardous waste.
The manufacturers claim that zeology leather is significantly more biodegradable than chrome-tanned alternatives, supporting leather’s integration into circular product strategies. Sportswear brand Puma has incorporated it into its Re:Suede sneaker, part of its effort to create circular footwear solutions. In 2021, Puma produced 500 trial pairs made with zeology-tanned leather, hemp fibres and TPE outsoles. After six months of wear, the sneakers were composted under controlled conditions and achieved grade A compost certification. Following the trial’s success, Puma proceeded with a full commercial launch.
DyTan is another recent example of alternative tanning chemistry designed to meet environmental and performance targets. Developed by German leather chemicals group Trumpler in collaboration with Archroma and UK based Dr Leather Ltd, DyTan uses sulfonyl ethyl-based chemistry, originally from the textile sector, to crosslink collagen fibres in a pH-controlled process, avoiding metal salts, aldehydes, and bisphenols. The system also allows for simultaneous tanning and dyeing using coloured agents, improving process efficiency, and reducing reliance on additional dyestuffs.
Leathers tanned with it are said to show strong hydrothermal stability and high abrasion resistance, and the clarity of the material makes it suitable for both pastel shades and deep, uniform colours. The process uses globally available, REACH-registered chemicals and operates at low temperatures, without a pickling step. Leather tanned with it contains a high bio-based content and has demonstrated biodegradability and
compostability in laboratory and industrial tests. The leather and its shavings disintegrate fully under composting conditions, and enzymatic hydrolysis enables potential reuse in further applications.
Food industry wastes
In parallel, renewed interest in vegetable tanning has led to experimentation with new sources of tannins, particularly agricultural waste. Traditionally, vegetable tanning has relied on extracts from tree bark and leaves from the timber trade, but some companies are now turning to the olive sector for alternative raw materials.
Olivenleder, originally based in Reutlingen, Germany, and now part of the Italian leather chemicals group Silvateam, has pioneered a method that uses discarded olive leaves, typically a waste stream from olive harvesting. The leaves are rich in polyphenols, especially oleuropein, that serve as effective tanning agents. The process avoids both heavy metals and aldehydes, resulting in a fully biodegradable leather that carries certifications from Cradle to Cradle and OEKO-TEX. It also retains a distinctive pale hue – often referred to as “wet green” – a nod to the gentle, non-aggressive chemistry involved. So mild, in fact, that the company regularly hosts tasting sessions where visitors are invited to sample the liquid tannin extract. [Editor’s note: it’s a bit like Marmite - you either like it or you don’t - but it shares that same astringent kick on the tongue!]
Footwear brands such as Tricker’s, Moral Code, and Grenson have adopted this leather, while Patagonia selected it for its American bison work boots, seeing ecofriendly tanning as an essential component of durable, responsibly made products.
Meanwhile, Italian chemicals company GSC has developed a tanning system based on olive mill wastewater (OMW), a challenging by-product of olive oil production. Globally, millions of cubic metres of OMW are produced annually, often containing high concentrations of organic compounds and polyphenols that make disposal and treatment problematic. GSC’s approach extracts tannins from this material and combines them with synthetic agents to create effective
Clicking out – Olivenleder tanned bison leather being prepared for Patagonia “Wild Idea Work Boots”
CREDIT: PATAGONIA
tanning and retanning solutions.
The raw material includes compounds such as hydroxytyrosol, catechol, and gallic acid, which contribute to leather stabilisation. The patented formulation works with both vegetable- and mineraltanned leathers, enabling a higher bio-based content, particularly in retanning. Independent testing under EN ISO 20136:2020 found leather produced using GSC’s system achieved an 87.14% biodegradability rate, close to that of pure bovine collagen and considerably higher than glutaraldehyde-tanned leather.
A different pathway to greener leather comes from German leather chemicals manufacturer Schill & Seilacher, which has launched Succuir, a new retanning agent based on bio-succinic acid. Made by fermenting waste sugars from agriculture and the food industry, it aims to replace fossil-derived and bisphenol-based synthetics with a lower-impact alternative that still delivers performance in softness, durability, and finish quality.
Designed to integrate into existing processes, Succuir is said to be suitable for footwear, leathergoods and upholstery. Its manufacturers assert it eliminates heavy metals and organic solvents and reduces water and energy consumption during production. In biodegradability testing (ISO 20136), leather retanned with it reached 99.3% degradation in just 27 days. The system also supports circularity: production waste such as shavings and offcuts can be recovered and potentially reprocessed.
With regulatory scrutiny on chemical inputs tightening, especially in the European Union, systems such as these are gaining attention as traceable, bio-based options for tanneries looking to future-proof their processes and meet environmental targets without compromising material quality.
Taken together, these developments signal a shift in how the industry views tanning: not only to preserve hides, but as a platform for material innovation, and for footwear manufacturers to enhance their products. Whether using minerals, plant waste or microbial fermentation, new tanning chemistry is redefining what leather can be, and how it fits into a circular, sustainable future.
Hyping the Hyperboot
Creating a novel category in any field takes inspiration, determination and hard work, generally sprinkled with some good fortune, a combination Anthony Katz leveraged when he was searching for a way to boost recovery as a former athlete. At the time, around 2000, he says most athletes were cooling their muscles and joints with packs of ice in plastic bags, a process that was cumbersome and awkward. Even in the training rooms of the US National Basketball Association, recovery machines were more akin to post-operation devices in hospitals; they were expensive and needed specialist operatives. “I wanted to democratise this technology,” explains Anthony Katz, “making it smaller, easy to use, and fit into athletes’ lifestyles.”
Good fortune came in the guise of a former school friend training NBA basketballer Kobe Bryant, who challenged Katz to create a product he could wear courtside. Katz created the first Hyperice product, a cooling shoulder sling from neoprene and fed Bryant’s suggestions into subsequent designs, sparking a business strategy to give free products to as many professional athletes as possible. Their feedback, combined with learnings from physios and access to high-level training sessions, inspired new iterations while also working as an advertising platform
The CEO of Hyperice tells us how teaming up with Nike for a boot that boosts warm-up and recovery is only the start of the potential of the burgeoning category.
Through the early 2010s, Hyperice launched heating pads and wraps, vibrating balls and massagers. In 2018, the company bought Normatec, a maker of recovery compression boots, to round out its offering and capitalise on a renewed focus on health that was driven by the covid pandemic.
Athlete-focused synergy
Hyperice’s focus on the athlete resonated with Nike, and the teams approached each other to research how their expertise could complement one another for new products, leading to the launch of the Hyperboot.
“The collaboration with Nike represented a unique moment in our product development history,” Jim Huether, Hyperice CEO, tells Footwearbiz. “We’ve long drawn inspiration from Nike's approach to athletecentred innovation, so this partnership felt like a natural evolution of our mission. We were essentially taking our proven Normatec technology and integrating it into the most constrained space we’ve worked with.”
The primary technology in the Hyperboot is the dynamic air compression from the Normatec and the heat technology from the Venom. A system of dual-air Normatec bladders bonded to warming elements evenly distributes heat throughout the upper and helps drive heat deep into the muscle and tissue in the feet and ankles and then up through the calf and into the leg. “Nike’s expertise in materials science and patternmaking was crucial to our success. Their deep knowledge of how fabrics behave, how to construct
The heat and compression can be adjusted by a button on the shoe; wearers can choose from three levels.
ALL CREDITS: NIKE/ HYPERICE
“ Athletes were turning previously unproductive travel time into active recovery sessions. ”
JIM HUETHER, HYPERICE
HYPING THE HYPERBOOT
Sha’Carri Richardson says, “As a sprinter, every millisecond matters, so having my feet and ankles already activated truly helps me prepare to perform at my best.”
durable footwear and their advanced manufacturing capabilities allowed us to reimagine our Normatec bladders in ways we couldn't have achieved alone,” adds Huether.
Involving athletes in the testing stage also was fundamental to the success of the design. Tobie Hatfield, the senior director of athlete innovation at Nike, brought on a roster of professionals including golfer Tom Kim, American footballer Jayden Daniels and gold medallist sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson. “The Hyperboot has some of the most consistent wording from the feedback of any product I’ve worked on: that their ankles feel light and loose,” he comments. “One of the other advantages was you can walk in it. We increased the toe spring and the heel spring, so that when athletes do walk in it, they feel even lighter.”
Expanded potential
Testing during the 2024 Paris Olympics brought some ‘illuminating’ results. “While we expected athletes to use the Hyperboot for pre-competition warm-up – which was highly visible to the public – and we were thrilled to see how extensively they adopted it for travel and transit recovery,” explains Huether. “USA Basketball players were using the boots during the roughly twoand-a-half hour trips to and from venues outside Paris. This ‘dead time’ utilisation became a major use case. Athletes were turning previously unproductive travel time into active recovery sessions. Sha'Carri Richardson specifically mentioned the mental component as well –the feeling that she was already ahead of her usual preparation process.”
The breadth of use cases beyond elite sports is also great to see, he adds. Early feedback suggests significant interest from occupational users who spend long hours on their feet, which expanded Hyperice’s view of the total addressable market.
Their strategy appears to be working. Multiple athletes are not only involved in testing products but are also investors, creating incentives for promotion. Hyperice doubled revenues in 2024 and the company says it is only at the start of a growing market for wearable tech in clothing and footwear. Working on the Hyperboot also taught them new approaches to miniaturisation and integration that they are already applying to future product development, and there are more products in the pipeline with Nike. “The Hyperboot represents just the beginning of what we see as a new category in wearable recovery technology,” he concludes. “The partnership with Nike has opened new possibilities for athlete-focused innovations. Long-term, we see the Hyperboot as establishing a new standard for how athletes think about preparation and recovery – not as stationary activities, but as integrated parts of their mobile, active lifestyles.”
The Nike x Hyperice boots have been available in North America since May this year. The shoe hits the global markets at the start of the festive season 2025.
Thermal imaging shows the heat being driven through the muscles and into the leg.
Turbulent times
Stuart Cleaver
The start of President Donald Trump’s second term of office in January 2025 was a turning point for the world economy and for trade development, with most industries and countries affected. News headlines this year have been filled with the words ‘uncertainty’, ‘chaos’, ‘globalisation’, ‘offshoring’, ‘on-shoring’, ‘near-shoring’ and the like. So, a summary of the global shoe industry in 2024 has to be placed in the context of how things are going in 2025 because 2024 could easily be named the PRETTY year (Pre-Trump Tariffs Year).
For footwear, there were probably two main hopes for 2024: to improve on the difficult year the industry experienced in 2023, and to take financial results back to pre-covid levels. These tasks were not easy given the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and a growing fear in Central Europe, and increasingly in Western Europe too, of escalation, especially with President Trump threatening to withdraw US support. This geopolitical uncertainty (to which we must add the ongoing conflict in the Middle East) has only added to concerns about inflation, energy costs, supply chains and other perceived difficulties. Also, more than 50% of the world population lived in a country that was having an election in 2024.
The author of the World Shoe Review report says the global industry made some progress in 2024, but that the tariff turbulence of early 2025 has plunged the sector into anxiety again.
Ups and downs
Despite these problems, the shoe industry was able to experience a more positive year with a rise in output compared to the negative 2023 results. In part, that was due to re-stocking. With regard to the second objective, though, there are still many instances of precovid results not being recovered as yet. Even a simple measure of population-to-shoe output would show
A bounce-back by adidas was one of the industry’s success stories in 2024.
this: the 2019 level of 2.86 pairs per capita dropped to 2.84 pairs in 2024. Perhaps one of the most important developments in 2024 was the surge in imports to the US. Did this contribute to the protectionism the US administration has embraced now? Probably not. Imports into the US rose by 115 million pairs in 2024 or by 6.4% compared to the previous year. US consumption also went up, by 113.5 million pairs or 6.5%.
China was supposed to be moving from an export-based economy to a domestically focused economy. However, in 2024, a total of 8.2 billion pairs were exported by China, which is more than double the total amount for the next 10 leading exporters combined. This excludes exports that go through intermediary countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, France and Germany as reexports. While Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Cambodia have grown as footwear exporters, they still have a long way to go to catch China. Nike had a difficult year which probably, on the surface, is surprising, as sport and athleisure have been strong movers, aided also by the move from formal to casual footwear, even for business and work. Adidas had its own problems with the gradual winding down of its Yeezy business, but the group bounced back in 2024. Up and coming brands such as On of Switzerland and Hoka, plus more established players such as Skechers, have also been success stories.
Tariffs and counter-tariffs
But back to the second Trump administration. In February 2025 promised tariffs began to be imposed by Trump, initially on near neighbours Canada and Mexico, plus China. The administration’s thinking was to protect and reinvigorate domestic manufacturing industries, to have a more equitable trade balance and to deliver a deterrent against illegal immigration and the flow of opioids into the US.
Of course, such an action was always likely to start a trade war that would spread globally with retaliatory moves. At the same time, it was always likely to affect the standard of living of most US
CREDIT: THE WHITE HOUSE
citizens, although probably not the elites. From free trade (or existing, lower tariffs that were already in place) to additional tariffs with double- and triple-digit percentage figures was a steep rise. Non-profit economics research organisation the Peterson Institute has estimated a likely hit of $200 billion to the US economy under the Trump presidency, plus a rise in inflation.
China retaliated with targeted additional tariffs of its own, also with high-percentage increases on existing rates. But estimates suggested that the value of imports into China that this would affect would be a small fraction of the figure for exports from China to the US. During the first Trump administration, a two-year trade war with China began, with China agreeing in 2020 to spend an extra $200 billion on US goods as part of the negotiated settlement, but this plan was derailed by covid. China also said the 2025 US tariff increases breach the rules of the World Trade Organisation.
Industry concerns
As far as the shoe industry in 2025 is concerned, the the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA) has indicated its concerns.
As FDRA has pointed out, a sneaker that would have cost, say, $20 to produce in China plus $5 shipping cost, would be $50 at wholesale and $200 at retail. With double- or triple-digit tariffs, this could mean that a men’s luxury shoe from Italy could become cheaper than a standard sneaker from China.
A trade war also brings swings and roundabouts. While a tariff increase on China could help Brazil make gains in the US market, it could also see China flood other markets instead, including markets in Latin America that are also important for the industry in Brazil.
As to the question of reducing offshoring, this has never really worked in the medium or long term.
Companies including Clarks and Dr Martens have tried to bring some product back for on-shoring, but
US president, Donald Trump, presented new tariff rates to the world on April 2, which he called Liberation Day.
without tangible success. Having said that, a survey of US businesses found that 81% of executives thought they would like to try more on-shoring or at least near-shoring.
The US only produces footwear in small volumes and largely for niche markets, including military and safety. According to FDRA, there will be no saving of US jobs and even a possible loss of jobs as a result of the extra tariffs. Higher prices on footwear imports from China will impact on importers, distributors, retailers, as well as on the public. Alternative sources of supply such as Vietnam and Indonesia are still reliant on China for materials and components.
In May 2025, FDRA reported that 76 major brands, including Nike, Skechers, Crocs, adidas, Puma, VF, Wolverine and others, had pointed out the difficulties the tariffs will cause the footwear industry. Added tariffs will mean added costs that can neither be absorbed or passed on to hard-working, low- or medium-income families, the footwear brands have warned.
Spending power
Reduced customer spending as a result will not help the industry or the general economy. Furthermore, the measures will not drive footwear production back to the US in a hurry because it would take significant capital investment and years of planning to achieve that (even if the labour skills could be found).
For its part, the US Footwear Manufacturers’ Association (FMA) has suggested that income from the extra tariff levels (if enacted) should be used to stimulate the shoe supply chain. At present only 25 million pairs or so are being produced in the US. To take this even to 5% of the total would give a production level of 135 million pairs. There were some signs, FMA said, that established
“ The roller-coaster ride, including a deferral of most tariffs until July, has only added to the uncertainty. ”
companies were re-investing in US production and some start-ups were appearing. It also said 50% of service personnel were wearing footwear from overseas. All boots for this segment should be made in the US, in FMA’s opinion.
No winners
The roller-coaster ride including a deferral of most tariffs until July has only added to the uncertainty. As there are no winners as things stand, there should be a fall-back to (say) just keeping a 10% tariff rate across the board.
If nothing else, this whole episode may have focused minds on how practical or not it is to produce locally, on the need for careful study of supply chain alternatives and on the need to avoid too much reliance on one manufacturing location.
The first half of 2025 showed some of these signs of volatility in the shoe sector. Skechers was taken over by 9G Capital, Dicks took over Foot Locker, Ecco and Lowa closed factories in Slovakia, while Nike had to make adjustments to its strategy.
Footnote: More detailed data on the global shoe industry in 2024 can be found in the author’s World Shoe Review.
Swiss performance running shoe brand On is among the up-and-coming names in the global footwear industry.
CREDIT: ON
ECCO’s philosophy is “form follows foot” – it says an integral part of the DNA as shoemakers is providing quality and comfort.
ALL CREDITS: ECCO
ECCO’s strengthis alsoitsweakness
In the evening of May 4 this year, a devastating fire broke out at ECCO Leather’s tannery in Dongen, the Netherlands, destroying the wet-end facility. Luckily, as it was overnight, nobody was hurt, but players across the global leather industry took to social media to express their sympathy and well wishes for the employees and management, collectively feeling sadness for this well-respected tannery.
The beamhouse facility processes around 27 million square-feet of wet blue per year and employs 120. The separate leather finishing facility, which employs about the same amount and produces around five million square-feet per year, as well as the main building, escaped the fire.
An investigation is under way, as is the clean-up operation. Reports at the time said the fire was wellestablished by the time firefighters arrived, so the decision was taken to let it burn through. A local company has been brought in to investigate and pass the results onto insurers, whose specialist providers will instruct removal and clean-up operations. Because of the nature of these investigations, the reports into the cause and full impact of the fire might take some time. “We are deeply saddened by the fire at our factory,”
The footwear and leather group is focusing on resuming operations after a fire destroyed its wet-end processing facility in the Netherlands. The vertical nature of the business means disruptions have a knock-on effect.
ECCO Group told Footwearbiz. “There was no one in the building at the time, so fortunately, there was no personal damage.”
Global reach
Shoe brand ECCO was launched in Denmark in 1963 and credits part of its success to its structure: it is unusual for one company to control most of the supply chain, from tannery and shoe production to wholesale and retail. Its shoes are sold in 89 countries and the group employs around 21,400 people. It has worked with KT Trading on the hides supply side for many years.
As well as the Dongen site, ECCO also owns tanneries in Indonesia, Thailand and China. The facility in East Java was established in 1993 and underwent a complete renovation in 2012. It employs about 530 and has a capacity of 30 million square-feet per year. The Thai tannery, ECCO Leather Ayutthaya, was set up in 1998 and operates with ‘zero waste to landfill’ and solar panels for renewable energy. It employs 300 and has a capacity of 22 million square-feet. The Chinese facility, ECCO Tannery Xiamen, was opened in 2008, and in 2014 set up a cutting and sewing operation. By 2019, it had installed solar panels and added an extra cutting plant. The facility employs 650 people and has a capacity of 35 million square-feet per year.
Hot shots at HotShop
The site at Dongen is something of a flagship facility, with the finishing plant and R&D space described as “the world’s first design-led tannery”. It places huge emphasis on being at the cutting edge of creativity, developing novel leathers for the fashion sector, such as Apparition, a wearable transparent leather, and FSDX, a lightweight full-grain leather fused to a non-woven backing.
Each year, ECCO invites around 150 designers and creatives from various sectors to the tannery for a week of demonstrations, inspiration and collaboration. The 17th HotShop took place last summer, aiming to influence how these designers think and feel about leather. The idea is to show how versatile and desirable it is, and how it can be adapted and used in ways that they might not have thought possible. “Instead of walking around sweat-inducing trade shows, feeling
swatches here and there, HotShop is a place where everyone is a creative equal,” says ECCO. “It’s a time to think about leather beyond commerciality and an opportunity to treat, colour and design. Most of all, it’s an experience that inspires.”
During the week, the designers are challenged to create collections, accessories or leathers to various briefs. ECCO staff host workshops demonstrating the latest techniques and technologies, sparking discussions around use and sustainability. These innovative practices include supercritical dyeing, where carbon dioxide is used to infuse pigments, resulting in a dry and waste-free process. While currently at lab scale, Ecco dyed shoes for London Fashion Week 2024 used this technique.
HotShop also gives attendees the opportunity to tour the tanneries, and learn about the DriTan process, which allows leather manufacturers to use the moisture already present in hides and, therefore, consume less water in the tanning process. ECCO has calculated that DriTan allows it to save 20 litres per hide, saving a total of 250 million litres of water per year in Dongen, as well as eliminating 600 tonnes of sludge.
Another development presented during the workshops is a new leather ‘yarn’ that can be used to make knitted uppers for footwear, furniture and accessories. The result of a tie-up between bio-yarn producer Spinnova and KT Trading, Respin uses wet blue shavings from European tanneries, and has been described as a “step towards completing the circular economy for leather”. ECCO and Spinnova signed a letter of intent last summer, saying the fibre meets quality standards and they are working on a commercial shoe launch.
ECCO invests in bringing designers into its Dongen tannery, to help them see the vision and the processes behind leather making, and its creative possibilities.
ECCO bought the tannery in Dongen in 2000, and began producing biogas from waste in 2003. It bought the nearby wastewater treatment plant in 2018, and in 2022 renovated and extended its R&D building.
All these techniques and processes enable designers to view leather in a new way – and the creatives, in turn, help ECCO with the R&D process, to see what finished product designers might require and how they approach the process. Smaller HotShops have also taken place in the US – New York and Portland – to bring the vision and experience to a wider audience.
Strict targets
ECCO is transparent with its sustainability targets and achievements, and all its tanneries were classed as Leather Working Group gold in 2024. The group aims to be “energy neutral” by 2028 and reach net-zero discharge of water before the end of 2030. It implemented water recycling technologies at its tanneries in the Netherlands and Indonesia in 2023, allowing 30,000 cubic-metres of water to be recycled in Indonesia alone last year. In 2021 it bought 30% of Danish start-up Bioscavenge, which has developed new methods for water treatment plants.
“ECCO owns practically the entire value chain from leather and shoe production to retail, and this puts us in a unique position to influence the development of new methods in the environmental field,” Thomas Gøgsig, ECCO’s CEO, said at the time. “We wish to not only reduce our own water footprint to the widest possible extent, but also to support intelligent environmental technologies that elevate the industry’s way of handling and prioritising water resources.”
All the tanneries and half the shoe-making facilities have solar panels installed, so half of the group’s energy is derived from renewable resources. Last year, it commenced work on a 64 hectare solar park in Denmark, which is due to come on stream this year and will return enough energy to the public grid to make up for most of its European facilities’ consumption.
Management headaches
However, ECCO is not long past a change of management. Longstanding manager Panos Mytaros stepped down as group CEO last year, having held the role for around three years. He was replaced by Thomas Gøgsig, formerly CEO of ECCO Investment, the investment arm of the business.
For 2024, the group reported revenues of €1.49 billion, and although this was lower than in 2023 (€1.57 billion) and 2022 (€1.58 billion), it was above 2021 (€1.2 billion). However, profit before tax was substantially lower compared with 2023: €5.1 million versus €90 million, which was described as “far from satisfactory”.
In its 2024 report, the group somewhat prophetically commented: “ECCO’s factories, tanneries and retail stores are inter-dependent, and a disruption in one area may adversely affect the entire value chain and, most notably, sales to consumers. As an example, a factory fire or natural catastrophe might significantly affect the group’s operations. ECCO’s prepared mitigations include measures to prevent fires, various contingency plans and suitable insurance cover.” In that report, it also estimated profit before tax would be back up to between €50 million and €75 million this year. But that
The Fourth Dimension collection uses UVreactive photochromic pigments so the leathers shift colour when exposed to sunlight, returning to their original tone when the UV light fades. The colour range consists of a palette of pale, soft hues that burst into vibrant, lively colours when exposed to sunlight. It features an array of finishes, bodies and thicknesses, each contributing to capturing the passage of time on leather.
The Shadows collection is inspired by the way shadows blend and diffuse across natural landscapes, with muted, earthy tones, balancing light and dark in a two-tone effect on nubuck. Carnauba wax is infused into the leathers through a process of “stuffing” the material during washing. This technique brings a stonewashed texture and dry touch.
Fire became the central inspiration for the Burned collection that shows scorched finishes and oxidized textures that highlight the transformative power of heat.
The Equestrian Biker collection includes highgloss finishes paired with soft leather bodies and embossing and sanding techniques to create a vintage effect, allowing the natural beauty of the material to shine through, while the subtle use of sandpaper adds textures and nuances. The contrast between softness and roughness enriches the aesthetics and gives the leather character.
was before the fire, which is likely to impact the business substantially.
How ECCO’s contingency plans will play out, and how it will adapt and restructure is still unclear, but many will be hoping for a Phoenix-like recovery. At the time of going to press, ECCO told us: “Investigations are still ongoing, so we don’t have many details to share. Our full focus is still on our employees and resuming our operations so we can continue to service our consumers across the globe.”
ECCO’s novel leathers aim to spark inspiration
SMEs weigh data burden
The head of a small Italian footwear manufacturer inadvertently summed up the burden of new European data requirements by lamenting the “problem of sustainability”. Speaking as part of a panel discussion at footwear show Micam Milano, Alberto Masenadore of Calzaturificio Peron [politely] expressed frustration about the incoming legislation. “In the previous years, our main concern was to satisfy the designer, making good samples, and then satisfy the production, making high-quality shoes,” he commented. “Now, we have to also face this problem of sustainably.”
He is, of course, talking about the slew of new regulations and demands expected in the European Union in the next five years or so, including Digital Product Passports, Extended Producer Responsibility, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and others under the European Green Deal, which aim to make the fashion industry more sustainable and accountable, putting the onus on the sellers to take more responsibility for the goods they place on the market. As part of this, products will be expected to carry information about materials and manufacture, and the retailers must have a clear view of inputs and end of life. But who is expected to provide all this extra information? Whatever the theory, it looks like it will be the manufacturers, a challenge many – especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – are wholly ill-equipped for.
Some of the world’s most beautiful shoes are made by highly skilled artisans in small workshops. Now, these are being asked to also become data providers and sustainability managers as their customers lean on them to supply information for European legislation. What will become of these Italian SMEs that operate with alreadytight margins?
There are about 4.3 million SMEs in Italy, 95% of which are micro-enterprises. They employ 13 million people and account for 80% of employment, according to government figures, generating more than 65% of the nation’s added value. They are the “powerhouse of the Italian economy” says Valentino Valentini, deputy minister at the Italian Ministry of Enterprises. However, there is now an urgent need to digitalise and upgrade these businesses so they can meet the fresh needs of their customers.
Rosie Gaunt and Alberto Masenadore speak as part of a panel on sustainability at Micam in Milan. CREDIT: WTP
“The new EU regulations, particularly the Digital Product Passport requirements under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, present several challenges for small-and medium-sized footwear manufacturers,” Giovanna Ceolini, president of Italian footwear manufacturers association Assocalzaturifici, tells Footwearbiz. “SMEs will need to collect and document detailed data on materials, production processes, chemical usage and supply chain information, which they may not currently track systematically. Additionally, implementing digital systems to create, manage and transmit data requires technical expertise and software investments that small manufacturers often lack. Footwear production involves multiple suppliers across different countries, making full traceability a challenge for small producers with limited influence over their supply chains. Furthermore, validating environmental claims and material compositions may require laboratory testing, adding further costs.”
Brands united?
Brands share some of the frustration, according to Rosie Gaunt, head of responsibility at luxury shoe brand Manolo Blahnik. Although not speaking in an official capacity, she expresses how difficult it is to gather the data required for the new rules. “It’s coming to us in snippets, and it’s not good enough,” she says. “There are a lot of solutions but these need investments from the brand, unfortunately, so it’s a challenge to prioritise that investment to make that work easier.”
Speaking at Micam, she was keen to stress how lucky brands are to work with such skilled artisans, and admits they are now asking them to “wear so many hats”. “All brands are asking a similar supply base for the same information, but maybe in a slightly different way, so we’re inadvertently doubling, tripling or quadrupling the workloads of suppliers who are already doing something they haven’t been trained to do,” she says. “So, more collaboration is needed across the sector to support our suppliers, which is really what the whole industry is underpinned by.”
More collaboration, and more clarity, pleads Mr Masenadore. “We need a to work with our customers to find a way to get this data together, because, as everybody knows, the margins in production are very small. Crucially, we don’t have a clear picture of what they really need, and everybody is different. It is very important that this becomes clearer.”
Financial instruments
To help with the burden, the Italian government has introduced specific fiscal and financial instruments to help enterprises invest in digitalisation, as well as tax credits and state guarantees of 80% on lending for working capital and new investments. It has also established a network of 50 innovation centres that offer experimentation labs, targeted training and mentoring programmes for SMEs interested in adopting new technologies.
Specific to footwear, several approaches are emerging
to help small manufacturers adapt, starting with the development of standardised models and specific guidelines, Ms Ceolini tells us. “A gradual adoption process is essential to allow less structured companies more time to adjust their systems. Also, accelerating digitalisation efforts will be key to facilitating compliance and reducing the burden on SMEs.”
For its part, Calzaturificio Peron has developed a system that uses radio-frequency identification (RFID)adding a tag within the shoe that is able to carry data and record it in a permanent blockchain system. Footwear brand Tod’s recently used this system (although it is unclear whether it is from Peron) in its new My Gommino shoe, supported by the Aura Blockchain Consortium. Chips containing information on the origin of materials, production processes and compliance, as well as aspects of quality and sustainability, are embedded in the sole. Consumers can also scan this to learn stories of the artisans behind each pair, adding value by creating an emotional bond with the product.
These sorts of investments and strategies will be vital for the survival of the SMEs, and it is in nobody’s interests to let them flounder, but the question of who will bear these costs is “complex and sensitive”, Giovanna Ceolini concludes. “It will be necessary to work on brand-supplier dynamics with shared responsibility models and to be cautious about passing significant price increases on to end consumers. SMEs with less bargaining power may face greater pressure to absorb these costs.”
Giovanna Ceolini, president of Assocalzaturifici and Micam, understands the pressure small businesses will be under to comply with new rules.
CREDIT: MICAM
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