Before starting to list vegan and eco-responsible sneaker brands, it should be remembered that turning to companies that try to produce with the least possible harmful impact on the environment and on humans is good, reducing their consumption in general is even better. Indeed, it would be counterproductive to buy several pairs of sneakers a year from an ethical brand: you have to be reasonable.
That said, perhaps you’re on the hunt for eco-friendly sneakers and think switching to vegan options would be the best choice for the planet? Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, since animal leather (which is a by-product of the food industry, thus a way to recycle waste) has many advantages: strong enough to last a long time, but strong enough flexible to adapt to the shape of the foot to ensure comfort. however, theVegan brands are doubling down on their ingenuity to design eco-designed styles, in non-animal materials, in a bid to compete with leather. If you are looking for vegan sneakers, some brands are entirely dedicated to it, while others offer some models in their offer that also have leather options.
What are vegan sneakers?
Vegan sneakers are shoes entirely free of materials from animal exploitation. You will therefore not find leather to compose the upper, nor beeswax to coat the laces, nor dye derived from insects, nor glue which can in part be obtained from fish, for example.
Instead of leather, vegan sneakers can include plant-based materials such as cotton, linen or hemp. Or synthetic materials such as polyurethane (commonly called imitation leather) or polyester. They can also be made from faux leather that is made in part from organic waste such as apple, grape, pineapple or even cactus. These plant-derived faux leathers are usually made from an alliance of 20 to 50% biomass mixed with plastic (but they don’t provide the same flexibility and toughness as real leather, which limits their durability).
What are the advantages of vegan sneakers?
Vegan sneakers have the advantage of leaving you calm if you fear profiting from animal exploitation. Be aware, however, that these sneakers without cruelty they often have a shorter life span, which can contribute to higher resource consumption, and thus have a collateral disadvantage for the animals. Brief, all vegan sneakers are not necessarily eco-responsible. It should also be used to prolong their life so they have less impact than leather ones. And here’s just a selection of brands that do things very well.
Brands that produce vegan sneakers
Angarde
Astrid and Alexandre, brother and sister, co-founded the Angarde brand in their native Basque country, initially focused on espadrilles, with the aim of recreating this traditional shoe in the most sustainable way possible. Slippers followed, and now vegan sneakers. The latter are made in Portugal, in grape-based imitation leather (55% grapes, 22% bio-based polyurethane, 23% recycled polyester) for the outside.
Zeta shoes
Founded in September 2020 by the French Laure Babin, Zeta offers zero waste sneakers. With an external surface of grape marc pressed and transformed into imitation vegetable leather, an insole of recycled cork, a lower part of recycled rubber and laces made from plastic bottles recovered from the Mediterranean. Everything is done near Porto!
midnight on earth
Founded by the French Marie Viard-Klein, Minuit sur Terre offers only vegan leather goods. With the insole in cereal viscose and recycled polyurethane, the external upper in Oekeo-Tex certified synthetic fiber, the laces from recycled plastic bottles and the sole in natural rubber, Minuit sur Terre sneakers know how to be elegant and ethical.
Mr Mustache
Since 2019, the French brand M. Mustache has been collecting used sneakers of any brand in its stores to transform some of them into a recycled material that now forms the basis of its soles. If all the models of the brand are not necessarily vegan, the brand still has 12 references today.
Veia
If the French-Brazilian brand Veja, created in 2005 by two friends François-Ghislain Morillion and Sébastien Kopp offers many models in leather, it also includes some easily identifiable vegan references. Veja’s vegan sneakers are generally made in CWL: Cotton Worked as Leather. It is made of organic cotton canvas, covered with a coating of polyurethane (therefore plastic), corn starch and castor oil.
Matt & Nat
Far from referring to the first names Matthieu and Nathan, the Matt & Nat brand owes its name to the contraction of Material and Nature. It was founded in 1995 in Montreal by Inder Bedi (who left the company in 2013) with the desire to offer quality vegan leather goods. As its know-how is well recognized in terms of bags, the brand now offers shoes, including Matt & Nat vegan sneakers.
saola
The Saola brand (which owes its name to the bovid nicknamed “the unicorn of Asia” which lives in the mountains between Vietnam and Laos and which is included in the list of the 100 most threatened species in the world drawn up by the IUCN in 2012) offers sneakers since 2018. Designed in Annecy and tested in real conditions, the sneakers all meet an eco-design requirement and are made from bad seaweed, recycled plastic bottles and even cork.
Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
