31 waste disposal trucks are needed to clear the waste that 100,000 pairs of conventional sneakers cause during the production process and consumer life until their owners throw them away and they end up in landfills or incinerators. This is an insight gained from the first PUMA Product Environmental Profit and Loss (EP&L) Account for four selected footwear and apparel styles. Puma has started to extend the groundbreaking PUMA E P&L from 2010 to the product level and applied the analysis to two more sustainable and two conventional products: a pair of soon to be launched biodegradable PUMA InCycle Basket shoes and a biodegradable cotton PUMA T-shirt versus a pair of the conventional retro PUMA Suede shoes and a conventional cotton PUMA T-shirt. This helps to establish whether efforts to become a more sustainable company and develop more sustainable products are in fact making a positive difference....
What does the PUMA Product E P&L demonstrate?
The PUMA Product E P&L, which we developed with the support of PPR’s sustainability department PPR HOME as well as consulting firms Trucost and PwC, furthermore revealed that the new biodegradable PUMA shoe InCycle Basket and the biodegradable cotton T-shirt cause 31% less environmental impacts than their conventional counterparts. The analysis focussed on the environmental impacts caused by Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, waste and air pollution as well as the use of natural resources such as water and land along the entire value chain from the generation of raw materials and production processes to the consumer phase when our customers use, wash, dry, iron and finally dispose of the products.
More importantly, thePUMA Product E P&L ... values these environmental impacts and attaches a price tag of Euros and Cents.
By showing environmental costs in Euros and Cents, the new PUMA Product E P&L visualizes the environmental impacts PUMA products cause and makes comparing products in terms of sustainability easy for everyone. It therefore serves as a powerful assessment tool for comparing the sustainability of different products.
... By showing environmental costs in Euros and Cents, the new PUMA Product E P&L visualizes the environmental impacts PUMA products cause and makes comparing products in terms of sustainability easy for everyone. It therefore serves as a powerful assessment tool for comparing the sustainability of different products.
While the environmental impacts of the conventional PUMA Suede amount to €4.29 per pair, the environmental impacts of the biodegradable PUMA InCycle Basket are only €2.95 and therefore 31% lower.
What makes the PUMA InCycle Basket so much more sustainable than the conventional PUMA Suede?
GREENHOUSE GAS: The production, usage and disposal of the PUMA InCycle Basket cause around 35% less environmental costs of GHG emissions than the conventional PUMA Suede. The main savings arise at the raw material production stage as the PUMA InCycle Basket’s upper is made of a mix of organic cotton and linen while the PUMA Suede is made of leather. GHG emissions associated with raising and slaughtering of cattle for the production of leather far exceed those related to cotton farming. The InCycle Basket has further GHG savings due to the use of organic cotton compared with conventional cotton, which is grown using synthetic fertilisers (GHG emissions arise during the manufacturing and usage of synthetic fertilisers). At the end of its life, the PUMA InCycle Basket is 100% compostable while the traditional PUMA Suede will likely be disposed of in landfills or incinerated, furthering its environmental footprint. Composting has the lowest GHG emissions in the end-of-life treatment of products.
WATER: The water consumed during the production, usage and disposal of the PUMA InCycle Basket has an environmental cost that is 21% less than the PUMA Suede’s. This is primarily due to the water consumed during the tanning of leather which exceeds that consumed during cotton fabric production (yarn production, weaving and finishing). The PUMA InCycle Basket does, however, have a higher water cost during the raw material phase where organic cotton farming is more water intensive than cattle ranching.
WASTE: The PUMA InCycle Basket creates approximately only one third of the environmental cost of waste that the PUMA Suede generates, with the main savings coming in at the raw material production and processing stages. Waste generation from the production and processing of leather is more intensive than that of cotton. Another waste-saving benefit of the PUMA InCycle Basket obviously comes at the end of its life as it is 100% compostable and therefore no environmental costs arise here as long as the product is not disposed of in landfill or incinerated. Only one third, or in other words, 12 waste disposal trucks are needed to clear the waste that 100,000 pairs of biodegradable PUMA InCycle Baskets cause until they end up in an industrial composting facility system – rather than the 31 trucks required for disposing of the waste of a conventional sneaker.
AIR POLLUTION: The PUMA Suede, however, causes 14% less environmental cost of air pollution than the PUMA InCycle Basket. The energy required for leather production is lower than the energy required for cotton fabric production such as yarn production, weaving and finishing.
LAND USE: In terms of environmental damages caused through land use, the PUMA InCycle offers an enormous benefit as its impact is less than 20% of the PUMA Suede’s. Far more agricultural land area is required for the production of leather, in particular related to the cattle farming, for the PUMA Suede than for the production of cotton used in the PUMA InCycle Basket. If land is being converted for agricultural services, loss of biodiversity and other natural services is caused. Those natural areas rich with biodiversity provide essential services to society which regulate our environment, provide goods and services that support livelihoods, offer opportunities for recreation, and provide cultural and spiritual enrichment.
“The results of the PUMA Product E P&L dramatically demonstrate that we have to steadily increase the share of sustainable materials in our collections so that we mitigate not only PUMA’s but also our consumers’ environmental footprint,” added Zeitz. “For this reason, I also call upon governments to start supporting companies to use more sustainable materials in their products instead of continuing with antiquated incentives, such as import duties on synthetic materials that are in principle much higher compared with those placed on leather goods regardless of the environmental footprint. Governments have a unique opportunity to incentivize corporations so that they can accelerate their evolution to a more sustainable economy through more sustainable practices and products.” As an example, if we switched our key suede footwear styles from being made of leather to being made from a high-end and sustainable recycled material, PUMA would face additional costs of at least €3.4 million in duty rates per year.
The biodegradable PUMA InCycle Cotton Shirt vs. the conventional PUMA Cotton Shirt
The environmental costs for the conventional PUMA cotton shirt (€ 3.42) are 31% higher than those for the biodegradable PUMA InCycle shirt (€ 2.36).