How sustainable are your sneakers?

Over the last five years the sneaker industry has grown rapidly and shows no sign of slowing down. The global athletic footwear market is expected to exceed 95 billion (USD) by 2025. According to the World Footwear Yearbook, over 24 billion pairs of shoes are produced annually. Among them sneakers account for the largest     1    . What are the environmental impacts of the rapidly growing sneaker industry?

Sneaker production is very     2    . A typical pair of running shoes produces about 13.6 kilograms of CO₂ emissions which is unusually high for a product that does not use electricity or require power-driving components.

These emissions mainly come from     3    . The majority of sneakers are made from plastic and/or plastic-like materials. All these petroleum-derived plastics produce a(n)     4     number of carbon dioxide.

Then why don’t we move away from the use of plastic? Since sneakers have to endure much more than a regular pair of shoes, the aspect of their     5     is very important when it comes to their overall performance. Unfortunately,     6     materials hold up better than natural ones. Plastic has made shoes better, lighter, faster, more comfortable, and more accessible to everyone worldwide. Another issue with sneakers today is that most of them are made by using a combination of different plastics     7     in a very complicated way, making them very hard to     8    .

The footwear industry is at least 10 years behind the rest of fashion in terms of environmental standards. Seven out of ten brands are having discussions on sustainability, yet only 40% of companies have a sustainability program in place. Big industry players (such as Adidas and Nike) and some smaller     9     are trying to reduce their carbon footprint in different ways.

Considering that close to 25 billion pairs of shoes were produced worldwide in the last year, it is clear that immediate action is very important. It is my hope that we consumers will     10     our relationship with fashion and think about the environmental impact of our shopping habits.

Human beings are no stranger to extinctions, where entire species     1    . In the last 500 million years, there have been five times when life on Earth has almost ended. According to scientists, we are now entering the Earth's sixth mass extinction, for which human activity will     2    .

There is a long list of reasons why so many species     3    : pollution, deforestation, farming and overfishing. It is clear that human activity has negatively affected all other species on Earth. If a sixth mass extinction occurs, scientists believe that     4     three quarters of all species on Earth could become extinct. In turn, as we humans depend on so many species for our survival, we would also be     5     extinction.

However, it's not too late to     6     now. We need to take steps to set up nature and wildlife reserves, make good use of wind and solar energy, and reduce our carbon footprint.     7    , if we want to survive, we need to stop destroying the planet that we live on and start to protect it.