Twenty billion pairs a year!

Theo Staikos, Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, said that currently more than 20 billion pairs of shoes are consumed worldwide every year, and this figure continues to rise. This creates an enormous amount of post-consumer (end-of-life) shoe waste that is currently being disposed in landfill sites around the world; landfill sites which can result in serious environmental pollution and land contamination. Landfill space is becoming extremely limited. It is estimated that land fill sites in the UK will be used up in 6.5 years. According the UK Landfill Allowances and Trading Scheme Regulations shoes are considered to be 50% biodegradable. Forthcoming environmental legislation and producer responsibility concerns as well as increasingly environmental consumer demands are expected to challenge the way the global footwear industry deals with end-of-life waste. The research work presented by Staikos is an initial investigation into finding an holistic approach to product recovery and recycling in the footwear industry. The presentation provided a brief review of the trends in the footwear sector regarding the amount of end-of-life waste produced together with existing reuse and recycling activities in the footwear sector. It also gave an integrated waste management framework by combining a mix of design and material improvements as well as reuse, recycling and energy recovery activities and concluded by examining the challenges in establishing product recovery procedures for post-consumer shoes. Producer responsibility is an extension of the 'polluter pays' principle and requires manufacturers and distributors to take responsibility for their end-of-life waste and ensure that a specified percentage is recycled. This concept was first introduced in Germany with the 1991 Packaging Ordinance. Producer responsibility legislation has been introduced in the EU in a number of consumer product sectors, eg automotive (ELV), electrical/electronic (WEEE). Staikos also referred to the CEC-made project which is an EU-funded research project, the largest in the sixth Framework Programme. It has: * 54 partners * 14 European countries * 20 million euros * 4 years' duration The overall aim is to develop radical new manufacturing processes, materials, products and services in order to increase the competitiveness of the European SME footwear sector. CEC-made footwear was also the subject of a special seminar held during the Lineapelle fair in Bologna. With all the talk of new materials it was refreshing to hear that leather has a place in the overall concept. Loughborough's objective is to develop systematic and economical procedures for end-of-life management in shoe manufacturing. There are more than 40 different materials used in the manufacturing of a shoe and it requires complex decision making to identify the best recycling option for each type of shoe. Environmental, technical and economic factors all need to be considered for identifying best end-of-life management practice for post-consumer shoes. For the future a new research project has been submitted for national funding entitled 'Investigating the Realisation of a Zero Waste to Landfill Approach in the Footwear Sector'. Major Research Topics are: * Shoe design improvements to facilitate recycling * Semi-automated shoe disassembly process * Novel material recycling processes * Sustainable business models for post-consumer shoes Tough times for tanners Federico Albert Roth, adidas-group, said that the athletic footwear industry had gone through fashion and trend changes during the last years that led to an overlapping of traditional lifestyle and casual brands. Translated into leather, this meant that consumption became more diversified. While pigmented leathers and pu coated splits were used for almost all of their consumption, today between 15% and 20% of adidas leather shoes are made from aniline or semi aniline leather. Roth is the senior materials manager for the adidas group. He manages the leather supply for all the group factories across Asia and began his career in leather in 1989 in Argentina where he worked for some of the largest tanneries. He currently lives in Guangzhou where he joined adidas in 2003. He laid his cards on the table with regard to the current high price of leather saying: 'we are not willing to pay these prices'. He admitted that these are tough time for tanners. 'Today they are squeezed between the prices of raw materials and prices that they are able to pass on to us and what we are prepared to pay. 'The days when tanners were making a containers of black and a containers of white are long gone. We are making very very small lots and they are much repeated: colours, and sizes are very hard to predict.' Everything is stacked against the tanner, making it very hard for them. Currently individuality is recognised, allowing customers to choose: colour, style, material. This appreciation of originality is what the consumer wants but the knock on effect for tanners is that, to avoid obsolescence, 'our suppliers see us repeat the same small orders again in the same week maybe two times. We try to make only what we can sell. We try to get as much information as possible.' Preference is given to those suppliers who are local but they produce in so many countries that they could end up with hundreds of tanners. So they try to work with just one company who have multiple locations of production. 'We have many requirements: colours, environmental concerns, in terms of speed. There are people who can offer that but we also set a price barrier for the whole package. 'We try to get real time information from our retailers and work on replenish orders which is a little different from what we have been doing so far. It is very demanding in terms of the whole supply chain. When it comes to leather: * We need the right crust * We need to have the right colour * Everything we need on time. 'We are trying to become as flexible as we can. The moment we download orders, and that would be on a weekly basis, we have to see which factory has the capacity at this time and they need to see which tannery has the right leathers.' He spoke of the high price of raw hides which have been witnessed so far this year, citing increases of 15-20%. 'Prices of leather are currently high. What we see today are record high prices. Not since BSE and foot and mouth have prices been higher. The problem that we see is that there is nothing abnormal going on so the bottom line is that these prices appear to have become the normal. We honestly don't see this changing in the short term. 'The result of this is that if a certain shoe is being produced for a certain price bracket we cannot absorb these rises so will order less leather.' He said that raising the price of the shoe would result in fewer sales. 'I have talked to other brands and tanners and this is what is going to happen. What we see is lower consumption in the coming months.' Asked if they could use alternatives such as pig he remarked that it was an option and also that all the increases had been on grain not split. While they like to use as much leather as possible, those ranges which are produced for a particular price point are likely to use less and switch to alternative materials. The pricing dilemma may well work its way out in future seasons but this next one is the first which is required to absorb the current price increases, spring/summer 2008, as the prices have already been set. * Tough times for tanners * Overlap in styles between classic sport and lifestyle looks * Colours * Lot sizes Challenges for the tanning industry * Small lots * Repeated orders * Special colours * Multiple production location * Lead times: * Pull - not push * Real time date / Replenishment FASTER - FASTER - FASTER Effective sourcing Effective sourcing in Asia was the topic undertaken by Daniela Haines, Next Sourcing Ltd, Shanghai. This presentation covered a new collaborative approach to managing the procurement of leather and leathergoods in Asia and a quick glance at a few issues experienced within the group in Asia. The problems faced by all groups sourcing leather products in Asia are common. The range of tanneries is large in number and range of skills, and compliance with legal and social requirements is paramount. The group sourcing are faced with an onerous task in identifying which tanner is appropriate for their product in terms of the tanner's skills, knowledge base and experience and, hence, selecting the correct supplier. The challenges do not end there; the garment maker also needs to be selected against a set of relevant criteria. Maintaining quality throughout the process, to ensure delivery of premium products to the target market, can sometimes lead to logistical problems. The Leather Working Group approach draws from the often common needs of retailers to bring about a common standard of auditing and information supply, providing a regular dialogue and updates with industry and leather experts, Next being one of the companies involved in this project. Nike Considered Vanessa Margolis, project manager for the Considered Team which was launched by Nike in 2005, has worked for Nike for six years with the majority of her work focusing on the environmentally preferred material programme and building sustainable tools for business units. Margolis was one of the instigators of the Leather Working Group which aims to establish best practices for tannery audits which will allow tanners and their customers, the brands, to simplify the procedure through an agreement over the fundamental requirements, thus eliminating duplicated efforts and attendant costs. The desired aim is environmental sustainability. Margolis said that the lessons Nike is learning on how to make an environmentally sustainable product are: * Understanding your environmental footprint * The importance of industry collaboration * Appreciation of what the consumers want There is no particular order to these three tenets and no finish line. The audit protocol is a living document which will continue to develop and adapt over time. Standards The afternoon was rounded off by Mike Parsons, president of the International Council of Tanners, who spoke about Commercial, Social and Environmental Compliance and asked: 'Standards - Do they Matter?' He said that the International Council of Tanners, (ICT) had been in existence since 1920 and since1926 has co-operated with the International Council of Skins, Hides, and Leather Traders Associations (ICHSLTA) in recommending their commercial and trading standards, the International Contract. The International Contract has evolved today as the Numbers 6 and 7 Contracts and they are the basis for international trade in raw hides and skins, wet-blue, crust and finished leather. These establish and define a set of rules for fair and ethical trade in the leather sector. Even where this Contract is not used to support a buying and selling transaction, its very existence maintains the custom and practice - or the standard - that is used in the industry. Trading today is more complex than when the ICT was first established and the whole supply chain now has an influence on the requirements of supply of raw materials, finished leather, the manufacturing process and consequent care for the environment. Anticipating the responsibility to operate in a more transparent and ethical fashion, in 2005, ICT members formally adopted a Code of Practice and all members undertook to publicise this Code within their membership. This Code recognises that ICT members must adopt basic self imposed rules to demonstrate to their ultimate clients that the industry although changing geographically, it is able to respond to the expectations of their customers. The Code declares that ICT members commit to the promotion of best practice and continuous improvement in the respect of a number of areas including: * respect of human rights in the workplace * establishment of occupational health and safety practices * reasonable hours of work and benefits * sourcing hides and skins from known and carefully monitored suppliers maintaining acceptable standards of animal welfare * minimising the effect on the environment * honouring commercial contracts and complying with standard industry practice, for example with area measurement of leather. He stressed that the ICT does believe that compliance with 'Standards' does matter and it is likely that the voluntary Code of Practice and indeed the International Contract will continue to evolve over time as ICT anticipates the ever growing requirements of the wider marketplace.