Shoes – lots of people wear them. Some people like boots, others prefer slippers, the real athletic people wear sneakers to give them some extra traction as they go do active things. Boots, sneakers, and heels are all great, but have you ever heard of the BIRKENSTOCK?

       If you haven’t then I’ll take a wild guess and assume you have been living under a rock for several years. I am the elite shoe, the Birkenstock Arizona Slide in the color mocha, worn by many striving to achieve that trendy look where you’re extremely comfortable and look like you didn’t put that much effort into getting dressed, but really it took hours picking out the right oversized t-shirt. 

       I am the perfect shoe. One could describe me as being the butter to your bread, the peanut butter to your jelly, the milk to your cereal. Not only am I stylish, but my footbed also has this amazing ability to form to your feet, supporting arches and relieving great deals of pressure on the feet. You may be thinking to yourself, “goodness, this Birkenstock really does seem perfect… but it can’t be THAT perfect. There must be some sort of flaw.” Like everything and everyone in the world, I cannot be entirely perfect. 

       I am made of many different materials from many different places. My sole is made of ethylene vinyl acetate, EVA for short, a copolymer that makes a plastic material similar to polyvinyl chloride that is found in many shoes and other goods on the market. My footbed is made up of a simple layered system of suede, jute, natural cork, and natural latex. Jute, a sustainable fiber from Old World plants, is grown and harvested in tropical regions such as India, China, West Bengal, and Myanmar. The natural cork is formed from scraps left over in wine cork production, originally starting as bark on the cork oak trees in Southern Portugal. Natural latex, or “rubber milk” as the professionals like to call it, is sourced from the resin in rubber trees in tropical regions located in Southeast Asia. The suede covering the footbed and the nubuck leather used for my stylish straps come from cow hide, most likely from cows in Portugal, Germany, or France. The finishing touches are the nickel-free metal buckles with the signature BIRKENSTOCK stamp. 

       If you think of the big manufacturing picture, it is quite simple: materials are all gathered and brought to a factory where thousands of workers assemble and package shoes, which are then transported to stores and consumers all over the world. However, if you break it down, the process of making me is very complex and requires a lot of different steps and locations. 

       It all starts in the forests and farms of Southern Portugal and the fields of India. Hundreds, even thousands of workers focus on growing jute plants, cork oaks, and rubber trees. Once the plants and trees reach a certain age, their materials are able to be extracted. All are renewable;  the cork oak provides 100 to 200 kilograms of cork throughout its life, rubber trees produce around 650 kilograms of latex during its lifespan, and jute plants are sustainable, requiring little water and no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Farmers work hard, using their hands and simple tools such as tappers, knives, buckets, and bins to collect resources in. Their work requires many hours of machinery and labor to make these tools as well as the trucks they drive and the food they eat. Farmers who produce leather primarily slaughter cows for beef; the leather, a byproduct of the meat industry, is created from tanning the skins of the cows. The cows require grass and water to grow and live, the farmers require proper equipment to house and kill the animals which require the collection and manufacturing of machinery from metal and other materials, all of which runs using significant amounts of energy. 

       After long rides in trains, trucks, or planes, using diesel and fuel and requiring the production of engines, wheels, bodies, and windows, as well as hours of assembly and distribution, the materials finally arrive in either Bernstadt or Görlitz, two of the four BIRKENSTOCK factories in Germany. Once at the facilities, the materials are organized and stored until used in shoes. Footbeds and leather straps are formed and cut by hand, ensuring each part of the shoe is produced with the highest quality of care and precision, while soles are formed by hand and baked at 80 degrees to draw water out of the materials. Apart from scissors, stamps, presses, and ovens to bake soles in, not much machinery is needed. Following the manufacturing process, final products like me are placed in packaging made from 90% recycled materials and shipped off to various distribution centers in 90 countries around the world by the United Parcel Service, waiting to be sent out to stores and into customer hands. 

       Despite manufactured mostly by hand, a lot of energy and other resources go into running factories, giving Birkenstock average scores by the media on energy consumption and carbon emissions. While the big bosses boast new environment-friendly power generating plants and reusing heat generated during adhesion and drying of footbeds, a lot has yet to be done about carbon emissions and waste. 

       While you may be sitting here, still wondering why I am the best shoe on the market, in all my Birkenstock glory, let me explain to you the ethics behind this highly attractive and comfortable shoe. We definitely do not rank first on Ethical Consumer’s list of top ethical and sustainable shoes, but we also aren’t as bad as beloved brands such as UGG. Most of the materials used to make Birkenstocks are renewable, such as jute, latex, and even the cork which is recycled from the production of wine corks. Yes, the process of obtaining the leather used in the majority of shoes is unethical, as billions of animals are slaughtered every year, often suffering in cruel conditions such as overcrowding, confinement, and branding. However, BIRKENSTOCK is among many companies that offer vegan options in addition to avoiding the use of pesticides and chemicals in other materials. Based in Germany, Birkenstock has been known for stellar working conditions, moving away from sweatshop conditions and labor exploitation due to Germany’s strict labor, recycling, and waste laws that see the company using little water and recycling excess leather and EVA for other products and even creating materials for playgrounds and sport fields. While labor laws are not as strict or don't even exist in countries such as India and Bangladesh where many of the natural resources are produced, BIRKENSTOCK tries to use materials coming from Germany as much as possible in addition to supporting suffering industries such as the jute industry, where the increased demand in the product for BIRKENSTOCK has not only created and saved jobs, but ignited an industry that had previously been failing due to the increased use of synthetic and chemical materials in replacement of jute.

       Throughout the 246 years BIRKENSTOCK has existed, a lot has changed. BIRKENSTOCK became one of the world’s first shoe manufacturers to develop and use water-soluble and solvent-free adhesives in their products, in addition to being known for their incredible durability, repair services, and recycling programs. Shoes such as the Arizona are known to last for years and have been manufactured in a way that allows for easy repair, replacement, and even refurbishment, cutting back on waste by purchasing new pairs every year. As time goes by and the earth becomes more polluted by carbon emissions and resources become depleted, it is important for companies to move towards using renewable resources, cutting back on emissions, and discovering more sustainable ways to produce goods and services as small of a footprint on the earth as possible.