Sustainable Sandals for a Conscious Summer
NAE
A personal favourite due to their strong ethical responsibility, high quality and nice design. Nae has 15 years of experience as a vegan brand. One of the materials used is Piñatex, which is a certified B Corporation. It is a fibre extracted from pineapple leaves, a byproduct of an existing pineapple harvest. The microfibers used are OEKO-TEX certified. They work with two factories in Spain and four in Portugal. You can learn more about Nae here!
Allbird
Allbird is transparent about the use of materials, it measures its carbon footprint (for some each shoe has the carbon footprint listed) and they offset its carbon footprint. The sugar slides in the picture are created with SweetFoam®, proprietary material made from sugarcane and the world’s first carbon-negative green EVA (EVA = the material used in just about every footwear sole). Webbing straps made with 100% recycled polyester, finished with a bio TPU strap end.
Teva
Teva is a B-certified Corporation. And for materials, they work with certificates such as GOTS, Global Recycled Standard, STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX®, OEKO-TEX® STeP, Bluesign® and the company Higgs Index. You can also check out their global supplier location list!
The sandals in the picture have straps made from recycled plastic (REPREVE® polyester yarn by Unifi®). And treated by Treated Life Natural, a responsibly sourced peppermint-based antimicrobial to fight odor-causing bacteria
Birkenstock
It is not among the best brands when it comes to sustainability, but the fact that you can probably test and try them in many stores, and hence reduce returns and consumption of products you won’t use is a good thing itself. One of the materials commonly used is cork which is renewable. Birkenstock also has a vegan collection. So this is the least good option of them all if you can’t find anything else. Make sure you take care of them and use them for a long time ahead.
Good Guys Don’t Wear Leather
Founded in 2011. Good Guys Don’t Wear Leather has made vegan shoes for more than a decade. The shoes are made by a family-owned business in Italy with sustainable sources of materials. You can read all about the commitments and certificates here! The shoes in the picture are made of appleskin!