Ethical Shoes - where one might look

I have bought lots of pairs of shoes over the years from Vegetarian Shoes. they have a shop in Brighton but they do webshop orders as well. I’ve had no reason not to go back for more (I think I must have had about 10 pairs from them). I believe some of their shoes are made at a workers co-operative in Portugal. The vegetarian aspect was what was important to me, especially 10 years or so ago when it was a bit more of an alien concept than it is now. The one criticism is that the synthetic materials they use tend to make my feet quite hot and sweaty…! https://www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk/

I have also bought Ethletic shoes. They were sensibly priced and seemingly very ethically made. https://ethletic.com/en/

I tend to buy second hand shoes now, which allows me to switch off/lower my ethical concerns a little. Rightly or wrongly I lower my ethical standards with second hand goods, as I consider the impacts of manufacturing/production and transport of new goods. Plus it’s definitely the cheapest option! There seems to be no end of decent second hand clothing and shoes available at low prices, which I guess is a consequence of the general addiction to fast fashion.

I think the gold standard for ethically produced shoes are the Adbusters Blackspot Unswooshers… but they’re not cheap! I would definitely like a pair though.

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