13 Eco Friendly & Ethical Sandals For Sustainable Summer Fun

HOW WE FOUND THE MOST ETHICAL SANDALS

Being sparse in material, sandals are easy to overlook in favor of larger, more resource consumptive fashion items. Truly sustainable fashion knows no size or season. 

As we do with these articles, we judged the brands and their products showcased here against our sustainable and ethical fashion criteria.

If you haven’t read it yet, please do, but here’s a condensed summary of our requirements: 

• Materials: Low impact materials with a good end-of-life story. Preferably zero waste materials that can compost or biodegrade. Using upcycled clothing and materials already in existence is favorable, too. See below for more specifics.

• Supply chain & labor practices: Firstly, consider that all workers involved (in sourcing and manufacturing) are paid living wages and treated fairly. On the environmental side, we look for companies that reduce their operational impact by using green energy, purchasing carbon offsets, recycling their own products, and using low waste packaging. Even better if companies hold third party certifications (like B-Corp, Fair Trade, among many others) because then we know others have confirmed that they’re not greenwashing their products.

• Charitable endeavors: If companies give back and involve themselves in the world at large, all the better! For many of these footwear companies, this comes in the form of manufacturing via small artisan co-ops. This gives a level of freedom, independence, and integrity to the artists while bolstering developing communities. 

Fabrics for Eco-friendly Sandals

Typically, we like compostable fabrics, but here we found the market a bit different. For most sustainable sandals, recycled materials were key.

You’ll notice many of the outsoles are made of recycled rubber sourced from trashed tires. This is great because there are So. Many. Tyres. just sitting in landfills producing greenhouse gases, or worse, being incinerated and releasing toxins into the air. 

And since cars aren’t going anywhere fast, that waste will just keep coming. If we can find a way to put it to better use, great!

Natural rubber is the next best thing because it’s biodegradable and can be extracted from trees harmlessly.

Some other sustainable fabrics common to these eco-friendly sandals include:

• Recycled PET/Nylon: Synthetic fabrics, made from upcycled plastic bottles, discarded fishing nets, and other ocean plastic.

• Deadstock fabric: Sourced from either extra unsold garments or spare cuttings from production lines. 

• Cork fabric: An all-natural material we love for shoes because it’s cushioning, supporting, and antimicrobial (odor resistant- so no sweaty, stinky sandals!). It can also be harvested without killing the cork tree and ultimately, composted

• Jute: A plant-based fiber woven from the tough, straw-like leaves of the jute plant.

• Pinatex: A plant-based fiber made from pineapple leaf scraps, which would otherwise get burned).

Let’s Talk About Leather

Leather: be it ‘ethical leather‘ or vegan leather, is a divider.

Normally, we wouldn’t include leather on our ethical fashion guides. Between the hundreds of chemicals used in the tanning process and the obvious ethical conundrum in sourcing it, leather isn’t our bag, hence our dedicated guide to vegan sandals.

But here, we found a fair few ethical companies who were still using leather in some capacity. And let’s be honest most people (conscious consumers or not) use leather. Clothing or otherwise. No judgement.

So if this is your thing, our goal here is to rather point you in the direction of brands who are doing leather as ethically as possible. 

Some forms of leather we included, in order of sustainability:

• Upcycled/repurposed leather: The materials already exist so there’s no additional harm caused. And it repurposes them, avoiding rotting in a landfill.

• Naturally sun dyed leather: No chemicals used whatsoever, just nature working naturally.

• Vegetable-dyed leather: Goes through the tanning process but without any of the toxic chemicals. 

• Chrome-free leather: Last and least sustainable. We avoid this one because it still uses some harmful tanning chemicals. However, fewer heavy metals are involved.

We also consider how the leather was sourced. As mentioned, we think upcycled leather is the best bet because it’s making use of material that already exists.

Then there’s wild-caught leather. These are typically indigenous or rural communities that also use the meat to feed the community, so no part of the animal is wasted.

Next, there’s leather as a byproduct of the meat industry.

Much like the former in that the animals aren’t killed for their hides but less ideal because the meat industry, especially the industrial meat industry, is one of the least ethical and most rampant producers of greenhouse gases.  

We don’t consider brands that have no clear leather sourcing policy. We also completely avoid those that source from the pure leather industry, which needlessly kills over 1 billion animals per year. 

Know that we reach out to each of these brands to confirm all facts and policies.