Manolo Blahnik Get Greener

Manolo Blahnik (of Sex and the City shoe fame) has teamed up with Marcia Patmos to create a sustainable shoe line made entirely from cork, raffia and discarded tilapia skins. This is the first time I’ve heard of shoes made from fish leather and it looks like agreat way to upcycle waste from the food industry.

I think this is a great concept and should bring some more attention to sustainable materials but personally I think the shoes are a bit, well, ugly. The shoes shown above remind me of what my grandmother wore in the 70s and I find it hard to imagine someone paying $895 for a pair. But it’s definitely a step in he right direction.

via: WWD.com

Eco-Friendly Shoes From Gypsy 05

These eco-friendly, high-cut Snowflake Gypsyz shoes by Gypsy 05 are kind of like a sock attached to a rubber sole. Reading that description might make them seem a little odd but they’re actually quite attractive.  And as the weather gets cooler they’ll be a great way to keep your legs warm and stylish.

The Gypsyz shoes were inspired by South American handmade knit booties. The upper features a snowflake pattern on the 100% organic cotton knit sock. The sole is made from 100% biodegradable rubber.

You can get your own pair of Eco-Friendly, Navy/Cream Snowflake Gypsyz shoes at TheHipChick.

High-Cut Gypsyz are also available in Cream/Brown and Black.

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Puma has made a big effort to be a more eco-friendly, sustainable company. One of their projects was to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging. They introduced a packaging system they call the Clever Little Bag.

Puma’s Clever Little Bag replaced their previous Red Shoebox. The new design is easier to manufacture, convenient for consumers to carry, reduces cardboard use by 65% and doesn’t use any tissue.

From Puma’s website:

The Clever Little Bag uses less packaging, fewer raw materials and less water and energy in production than traditional shoeboxes.  Thanks to a reduction in weight, energy use is also decreased during shipping. Annually, this translates into a reduction of 8,500 tons of paper used, 20 million megajoules of electricity saved, a reduction of 1 million litres of fuel and a savings of 1 million litres of water.

Now Puma has a shopping bag made from cornstarch and eco-safe ink. The Clever Little Shopper is completely biodegradable in 3 months in a home composter. If you can’t wait three months you can actually dissolve the bags in hot water. Here’s a video that shows how quickly the bag dissolves.

And don’t worry about the bag dissolving in the rain. The water has to be about 140° F to dissolve. If the rain is that hot we have more to worry about than a melting shoe bag.

It would be even better if Puma shoes were biodegradable too They are pvc free but you can’t just throw them in the compost or woods like you can with OAT shoes. Hopefully that’s Puma’s next project.

Via Care2.com

If you love the look of Converse All-Stars but aren’t sure about how eco-friendly they are you’ll love these Women’s organic eco-friendly sneakers from autonomieproject on WorldOfGood.com.

These low-top sneakers look similar to the All-Star sneaker but they’re both organic and fair-trade.

The canvas used to make these shoes is 100% organic cotton. The rubber soles are made from FSC-certified all natural and sustainable latex. That means that the rubber was actually tapped from a tree in a well managed forest instead of being made from chemicals like other rubber products.

A Fair Trade premium is paid to both the rubber producers in Sri Lanka and to the shoe stitchers in Pakistan.

The shoes are also 100% vegan.

So if you’re looking for eco-friendly sneakers these shoes fit the bill in every way. And they’re also available in men’s and boy’s sizes.

Buy Them Now – Organic Eco-Friendly Sneakers.

Great Places to Buy Eco-Friendly Shoes Online

The term “Eco-Friendly” can mean different things to different people. When it comes to eco-friendly shoes it could mean that:

• The shoes are made from sustainable natural materials that can easily be recycled or biodegraded.
• The shoes are made from recycled materials.
• They’re made of vegan materials.
• The shoes are Fair Trade and/or ethically produced.
• The energy used to make the shoes came from renewable resources like wind or solar.

Or it could mean any combination of the above.

Well, regardless of your exact definition, here are some great online shoe stores to start your search for eco-friendly shoes.

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SimpleShoes.com – Simple shoes started in 1991 as a response to all the “Over-hyped, over-marketed, and over-teched sneakers out there.” Over the years the shoes became greener and greener and now are made from materials like organic cotton, hemp, recycled tires and inner tubes. They also have a nice selection of vegan shoes.

Even the packaging is eco-friendly. The shoebox is made of post-consumer recycled paper, soy based printing ink, natural latex and starch based cements. And they don’t waste materials on marketing tags hanging off the shoes.

The nice thing about Simple shoes is that you’re not compromising style for environmental stewardship. Simple shoes are available for Men, Women, and Kids in really nice styles from sandals to sneakers to casual styles.

Simple shoes offers Free Returns and Exchanges when you buy through their site. They also provide a Store Locator to find stores near you where Simple shoes are sold.

You can also buy Simple Shoes from PlanetShoes.com. They offer free shipping so you might save a few bucks and they sometimes have older styles that are not available on the SimpleShoes.com site.

You can also find Simple Shoes at Amazon.com where you usually get free shipping as well.

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PlanetShoes.com is an online shoe store that carries a number of eco-friendly shoe brands. They sell traditional shoe brands as well but luckily they have a specific section of their site devoted to just eco-friendly brands so there’s no confusion.

Planet Shoes carries brands like Simple Shoes, Sanuk, Keen, Birkenstock and many more.

Planet Shoes’ eco-friendly policies:

• 1% For The Planet – As a member of 1% For The Planet PlanetShoes donates 1% of all sales of it’s own Planet Shoes brand to environmental organizations. Sadly their house brand is not considered eco-friendly. Hmph.
• CarbonFund.org – As a member of CarbonFund.org Planet Shoes is committed to offsetting carbon emissions associated with shipping it’s products. It offers a service called “Carbon Free Plus Shipping” which allows you to pay a small fee which is then sent to Carbon Fund to offset your specific shipping footprint by making a contribution towards projects that support carbon reduction and the production of renewable energy.

Planet Shoes offers free shipping on purchases over $49 and free returns. If you choose to use their Carbon Free Plus Shipping the fee ranges from between $1.01 and $1.75 per shipment.

Eco-Friendly Shoes from PlanetShoes.com

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OnlineShoes.com is an online shoe store that also carries a number of eco-friendly shoes in a dedicated section. Oddly they hide the link to their eco-friendly section at the bottom of their home page.

When you click on their Eco-Friendly Shoes link you’re taken to dedicated page that lets you choose Men’s or Women’s shoes by Size, Style or eco-friendly type.

OnlineShoes.com allows you to see just the shoes that fit into one of four specific categories or you can view them all at once. The categories are:

• Hemp and Natural Fiber Shoes
• Recycled Materials Shoes
• Renewable Energy Shoes
• Vegan Shoes

This is great if you’re looking for only certain types of eco-friendly shoes and don’t want to have to read every description to be sure the shoes meet your criteria. They have a large number of shoes and brands in each category to choose from.

Buy Eco-Friendly Shoes From OnlineShoes.com

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So these are some of our favorite online shoes stores that sell eco-friendly shoes. If you have another online store you like to buy eco-friendly shoes from please leave a comment and let us know.