Ethical Trainers

Find ethical and sustainable trainers

Twenty five billion pairs of trainers were produced globally in 2025, more or less three pairs for every human on the planet. 

More trainers are clearly being made than people actually need. Why? Naomi Klein's classic 1999 book No Logo used the trainer as the prime example of the “brand” economy: people were no longer buying “things”, they were buying “meaning”. “Nike isn’t a running shoe company; it is about the idea of transcendence through sports”. This value of a brand is crafted through sponsorship deals, celebrity collaborations, and other forms of prestige building, usually in the Global North – but the tough work of actually making the trainer happens in poorer countries with poor workers’ rights legislation.

The distance between the person wearing the shoe and the person making it has perhaps never felt wider. Collectible old trainers sell at auctions at the price of rare artworks – but while penniless artists sometimes receive posthumous sympathy, the workers who stitch trainers that sell for over $1m at auction are probably never going to get credit. Many who stitched iconic trainers are still alive and working for poverty wages.

This guide assesses the main players in the market, alongside a handful of sustainably branded alternatives and a selection of secondhand stores. The core focus is on brands that design for sports, but there are plenty of more casual trainers and sneakers in the guide too.

What’s changed since our last guide?

A few previously higher-scoring companies have left the trainer market since we published our last guide to trainers in 2024. The B Corp sportswear brand Pangaia has stopped producing shoes entirely, while the vegan shoe company Po-Zu went out of business in 2025.

British brand Gola has been acquired by the Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation, while New Zealand’s much-hyped sustainable company Allbirds sold its footwear brand to American Exchange and began an unexpected, but very 2026, pivot into AI infrastructure.

Globally, Nike remains the global leader with just under a quarter of global market share, although its share has declined slightly over the last three years. It's still significantly ahead of runner up Adidas, which holds around 12%.

What makes trainers sustainable?

Sustainability can easily become a meaningless marketing phrase. In an ideal world, we might all be wearing refurbished trainers made from locally sourced 100% bio-based compounds, produced ethically using renewable energy, certified vegan and organic, free of plastics and toxics, durable and fully repairable, biodegradable, and supported by a fully integrated circular economy business model.

No brand is quite there yet, but there are some positive approaches worth highlighting – both in protecting workers' rights across supply chains and in the materials that go into trainers. But equally, some sustainable brands stumble on key ethical criteria. Perhaps the road to hell is laced with good intentions?
 

What footwear materials are sustainable?

The main materials used in trainers are leather and suede, natural textiles (cotton, wool, and silk in sports trainers), synthetics (plastics, polyester, nylon, spandex), rubber and foam. 

All have their fair share of problems.

How sustainable is leather?

The leather industry is highly polluting, a massive source of CO2 emissions, and a major animal rights issue. 

Many companies swerve the animal issue by saying that all of their leather is a byproduct of the meat industry. While it's true that most leather comes from animals raised for meat and dairy, leather itself is a profitable industry worth over £300bn globally. Groups like PETA argue that it is better understood as a co-product than a byproduct: “it’s safe to say that hides are anything but a recycling initiative”

Synthetics in footwear

Synthetics are refined fossil fuels, and the footwear industry alone accounts for 1.4% of global carbon emissions. Recycled synthetics are no silver bullet, as recycled polyester is often removed from fairly circular plastic bottle recycling loops in order to be turned into footwear. Trainers themselves are very hard to recycle, so much of this plastic is destined to languish in landfill for centuries.

Are ‘bio-based’ materials sustainable?

Sustainable brands often use bio-based leather alternatives, which are leather-like materials made from renewable biological sources such as plants, fungi, or agricultural waste. These are a step forward but are almost always coated in polyurethane – a form of plastic. Bio-based does not mean bio-degradable, and many bio-based alternatives only contain around 50% plant-origin content.

Other materials

Cotton meanwhile brings human rights, irrigation, and pesticide concerns, while wool and silk have their own land-use and animal welfare questions. Rubber doesn’t have a clean sheet either, whether it is tapped from plantations that displace rainforest, or synthesised from petrochemicals.

We awarded points in our Footwear Materials column for action on reducing environmental impacts, such as designing trainers for recycling or repair; using genuinely biodegradable uppers; offering plant-based options; all organic or recycled cotton; use of recycled materials; and for taking steps to reduce the impacts of leather, polyurethane, and PVC.

For more detailed information about footwear materials see separate feature article.

The table below shows some of the materials used by higher scoring brands in the category.

Ethical Consumer rating for sustainable footwear materials

We awarded points in our footwear materials column for lower impact options such as:

• designing for recycling or repair or offering these services
• biodegradable uppers, plant-based options even if they contained a percentage of non-biodegradable material
• all organic or recycled cotton
• use of recycled materials
• other actions on reducing impacts of toxics in footwear materials. 

We also looked at whether a company used PU, PVC or leather and if it was taking any action to reduce the impacts of these materials.

Which brands of trainers score best for sustainable footwear materials?

As can be seen in the table, the top scorers  in this category were the secondhand brands of Depop, Oxfam, Preworn, Thrifted, and Vinted. Plus a couple of brands making new trainers also scored 100 (Keen and Veja). Four brands scored between 80-95 (Ethletic, Hylo, SAYE, and Will's Vegan Shoes). 

Veja uses a significant amount of leather, and lost marks under our animals rating accordingly. But it also sources organic cotton and rubber from fair trade producers in Brazil and Peru. They pre-finance harvests by buying organic cotton two years before it is used, meaning that producers can live decently and reinvest in their farm. For example, in 2024 Veja paid nearly three times the market price for a kilo of cotton.

Which trainer brands had the worst ratings for footwear materials?

Around 25% of the brands scored nothing for footwear materials. These were:

• ASICS
• Champion
• Karrimor
• Lonsdale
• M&S
• Reebok
• Salomon
• Skechers
• Slazenger.

Are footwear brands running away from vegan trainers?

Just a few years ago the major trainer brands were making a big deal of releasing vegan versions of their flagship models. Adverts abounded for vegan Adidas Sambas and Nike Air Force Ones (including a vegan Billie Eilish collaboration), and vegan ranges from New Balance and Reebok. These were often accompanied with a hefty dose of self-congratulation: Adidas called its vegan Sambas “a step in the right direction … [which] advocates for a better future with an entirely vegan design”.

But the animal-free celebration has faded from these websites in 2026. Searching “vegan” in the Adidas, New Balance, Nike, and Reebok online stores returns results of shoes made with leather, and none of these brands’ UK websites stocked vegan-labelled shoes at the time of writing. New Balance discontinued its vegan 990s, Adidas’ previously vegan Velosambas are once again made with leather, and Nike’s “sustainable materials" framing doesn't mention veganism at all.

Some vegan flagship brands remain available through third-party sites, presumably while stocks last.

Luckily, dedicated vegan brands like Veja, Ethletic, and Will's Vegan Store are still widely available, and many more mainstream still brands offer explicitly vegan options.

PFA free trainers

PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, including PFCs) are a group of harmful industrial chemicals linked to a wide range of health and environmental impacts, and are widely known as “forever chemicals”. In humans, PFAS are associated with high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, cancers, reproductive problems, reduced immune responses, as well as immunotoxicity. In wildlife, impacts span everything from impaired otter immune systems to changes in polar bear brain function.

KEEN was an industry pioneer in removing all PFAs from its footwear by 2018 and published open-source guides to help other footwear brands remove the chemicals from their supply chains.

Regulation is now beginning to catch up. France banned PFAS in textiles, clothing, and footwear from January 2026, Denmark followed in July, and broader EU-wide restrictions are possible in the near future. Numerous US states have also implemented PFA bans, but the UK has notably shied away from a comprehensive ban.

A few other major brands have taken a proactive stance on PFAs. Hoka, On Running, Veja, and Will’s Vegan Shoes all state that they are free of intentionally added PFAs. Arc’teryx, Puma, and Vivobarefoot have committed to removing PFAs, but it was unclear whether they’d reached full completion at the time of writing. It's likely that many other brands have reformulated their shoes to align with new regulation, but we prefer to see explicit global bans on harmful toxics like PFAs.

Workers’ rights

Shoes are made overwhelmingly by women, almost entirely in the Global South, and frequently in appalling conditions that three decades of anti-sweatshop campaigning have struggled to shift. In her book Foot Work (which we’d recommend for anyone wanting a deeper look into the ethics of footwear), investigative journalist Tansy Hoskins counts some 50 million homeworkers across South East Asia alone, 80% of them women, stitching in domestic settings that no factory audit will ever reach.

Because virtually all trainer brands outsource production, when a workers’ rights scandal breaks, companies often blame the individual supplier for failing to enforce the company’s code of conduct as though it’s a one-off, rather than acknowledging systemic exploitation across the sector and the big brand’s role in it.

Worst scorers for workers' rights

While some brands scored full marks, or nearly full marks in our workers' rating (see further below), several brands failed to score any points at all here. These were:

• Adidas
• Champion
• Gola
• Karrimor
• LØCI
• Lonsdale
• Reebok
• Skechers
• Slazenger

Supply chain workers’ rights violations in recent years

Adidas, Champion, Gola, Karrimor, LØCI, Reebok and Skechers failed to score a single point in the workers category. There are far too many workers’ rights scandals in the trainers supply chain to list them all. Here are just a few:

In 2020, systematic below minimum wage payments were revealed in Karnataka, India. Nike and many other implicated brands responded by saying they were monitoring the situation and that they expected suppliers to follow their code of conduct.

ASICS took 18 months to take action against a Cambodian supplier that allegedly fabricated criminal charges to jail a union leader, following persistent campaigning from civil society groups. ASICS claims to respect unions according to their code of conduct.

An Adidas supplier in Myanmar allegedly fired 26 workers including 16 union members after a strike, several of whom have since been reinstated or compensated. Adidas also claims to respect the right to unionise. 

Moreover, the outsourcing model also means that if a government raises the minimum wage or tightens labour law, or if workers choose to unionise, the brands can move away.

Brands doing better on workers’ rights

Our research also uncovered evidence of better practices.

Ethletic, which scored 100/100 under Workers, uses Fairtrade-certified cotton across its entire range, employs permanent staff in Pakistan who are paid even when there are no production runs, pays 20% above the local minimum, and routes $1 per pair sold to a worker-run welfare society.

Community Clothing, also on full marks, partners only with UK factories and pays at least the national living wage.

Veja states that it is keeping its manufacturing in Brazil because of labour standards, despite Asia costing roughly four times less.

KEEN owns three factories and makes 27% of its footwear in-house, helping to avoid some of the ethical pitfalls of outsourced production.

Arc'teryx, Community Clothing, Depop, Ethletic, KEEN, New Balance, Oxfam, Preworn, SAYE, Salomon, Thrifted, Veja, Vivobarefoot, and Will's Vegan Shoes all scored 50/100 and above under Workers.

Can you buy secondhand trainers?

Trainer resale is thriving in 2026. Previously, used trainers have been bought as speculative assets, with buyers buying up hyped pairs to sell on for profit. 

Today however the dominant driver is sustainability, with 64% of resale platform users citing environmental responsibility as a primary purchase factor.

Secondhand trainers are a clear win for the environment, but many may find the prospect of a previous owners’ foot fungus fairly unappealing. Washing them and letting your newly bought secondhand trainers have an air dry outside for a few days is generally a good idea, as is letting your trainers dry from sweaty feet in between uses.

Lots of secondhand trainers for sale are still in good condition – some worn literally once or twice before someone decided to get rid – so even if you need a trainer in top condition for specific sports you can still consider secondhand.

Experience of buying secondhand footwear

Ethical Consumer worker Nadine has bought secondhand footwear and shared her experience with us.

“Some people have a problem with secondhand shoes, but there are so many that are nearly brand new but sold for a fraction of the price on the secondhand apps. I really like Vinted because the filtering helps me find what I'm looking for, and it's also easy to get well known brands for cheap e.g. hiking boots. Really worth considering." 

How to extend the life of your trainers

You can find specialist trainer brushes, wipes, and sprays; and online articles about cleaning tips are often trying to sell you something. But are these really necessary?

People cleaned shoes long before “trainer wipes” existed. While there’s debate about washing trainers in a machine depending on their materials, simpler methods are less controversial: 

• use an old toothbrush or cloth with soapy water to remove stains
• store trainers somewhere dry
• brush off dry dirt
• clean laces and soles regularly

And, obviously, avoid wearing light cotton trainers on muddy walks (we’ve all been there).

You might also want to try a gentle laundry or cleaning soap bar.
 

Can you repair trainers?

There are also a number of shoe repair platforms in the UK, including:

• Boot Repair Company
• Shoe Spa
• Sneakerser.com
• Vibram

Is it possible to recycle trainers?

It’s not always clear what companies mean when they say that they “recycle” trainers. The way that trainers are made in the first place and the combinations of materials makes them very hard to recycle. Multiple companies were talking about circular principles, but only a handful were doing meaningful things.

Arc’teryx, Hylo, KEEN, and On Running customers can recycle their shoes via their respective repair and recycling platforms. Vivobarefoot’s ReVivo platform offers repairs on all of its shoes, and once trainers can no longer be repaired, it sends some to a footwear recycling company in the Netherlands called Fast Feet Grinded, which uses “the rubber, foam, fluff, textile, and leather to supply resources for a range of products, such as playgrounds and outdoor sports fields".

The average trainer contains many components and each component can be made up from a complex mix of materials - see image below. 

Climate

Climate reporting was generally fairly poor across the sector, with nine brands scoring 0 under the Climate category. 

Most of a pair of trainers’ carbon emissions come from the manufacturing stages, followed by raw materials extraction. But most companies’ carbon discussions were focused on material usage – perhaps introducing a new bio-based leather alternative makes for a flashier press release than moving a supplier onto renewable energy.

Although material choices are clearly significant, we’d like to see more quantified evidence of emissions reductions across the sector. High scorer SAYE produced life-cycle assessment data on its latest model, stating that its ‘Lignify’ trainers produce around 24% less CO₂ than the industry average (8.21 kg vs 10.80 kg CO₂ per pair), alongside 39% less water use and a 25% drop in resource depletion.

Note that a 24% emissions reduction, while clearly significant, does not make a trainer purchase “good” for the environment. If all global footwear achieved this level of reduction, footwear would still account for 1% of total global emissions – double the footprint of all the world’s data centres.

Reducing global trainer consumption is the only way to truly stem the sector’s climate problem.

Waste Colonialism

Our new Waste Colonialism rating spotlights how the Global North uses countries in the Global South as a “dumping ground” for their unwanted and overproduced waste.

The highest-rated brands had not been found to be polluting major textile waste dumps in Accra, Nairobi, and the Atacama Desert in Chile, and had committed to transparency about their production values. For more information about waste colonialism see our forthcoming feature.

Nike and Jordon (owned by Nike) scored zero points in this waste colonialism category - the worst company. 

Several others only managed to score very poorly. For example, Adidas' brand tag was one of the most found on Accra’s beaches in Ghana. And it was found in textile waste in both the Atacama desert in Chile and in Nairobi. It managed to scrape 10 points (out of 100) for waste colonialism. 

A few others scored 20

Israel-Palestine

The only brand in this guide with an active BDS Movement boycott against it at the time of writing is Reebok. 

In 2025, it became the new sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which includes teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Puma was on the boycott list for the same reason until it ended its IFA sponsorship back in 2024, and Adidas before Puma until 2018.

Interestingly, Reebok tried to terminate its sponsorship in 2025, only to reverse its decision when the IFA threatened to sue them. A statement from the IFA said: “There are clear laws against boycotts, and we will examine all legal options available to us [...] We are convinced that a braver and more honest sponsor will be found in the near future.” 

The BDS movement lists lots of ways to get involved, including for example:

• organising mock football matches inside Reebok shops to cause disruption
• delivering the letter from 367 Palestinian clubs to Reebok offices
• Using Clean Clothes Campaign’s template to send an email to Reebok

Other brands’ approach to Israel-Palestine

The mid-scoring brands in this category lost marks for having subsidiaries or significant retail presences in Israel. 

While Puma has ended its IFA sponsorship, it was marked down for sponsoring the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv. While playing in Amsterdam in 2024, Maccabi fans tore down Palestinian flags from homes while saying “death to Arabs”. Maccabi fans gathered in Dam Square were filmed saying “fuck you” to locals and “fuck Palestine”. On the way to the match, fans were filmed singing “Let the IDF win, fuck the Arabs”.

Price comparison

Does buying more ethical trainers cost you more?

We looked at the price of trainers for four of the high scoring brands, four low scoring brands, plus four mid-table brands.

Prices as of August-September 2026.

Although the lowest scoring brands have the cheapest starting prices (due to economies of scales and not paying for more ethical practices), they can also have extremely expensive trainers - nearly £300 for Nike.

If you do want one of the 'big name' high street brands, buying secondhand is a good way to keep the financial (and environmental) cost down.

Tax conduct

If we only look at the brands selling new trainers, a clear trend emerges – they either score very well or very poorly for tax conduct. One third of brands score full marks, while the remaining two thirds scored 20/100 or less.

Who owns which brand of trainers?

Like many other industries, the footwear sector is dominated by some big brands and multinational owners.

This is who owns some of the big brands in our guide:

• Nike: Jordon and Nike
• Frasers Group: Karrimor, Lonsdale, Slazenger
• 3G Capital: Skechers
• Wolverine World: Merrell, Saucony

Research methodology

How the research was carried out:

We applied eight ratings to each company in the guide: Climate, Animal Products, Workers, Tax Conduct, Israel-Palestine, Company Ethos, Footwear Materials, and Waste Colonialism. 

The data was collected and research carried out in August and September 2026. 

All companies were contacted with requests for information, but only Will's Vegan Shoes responded. We therefore used publicly available sources, such as company sustainability reports and annual financial disclosures, as the basis for the research.