SUSTAINABILITY | DESIGN
Footwear brands get on the good foot
Shoe designers are exploring materials and technology to help brands improve sustainability in their products. David Eldridge reports on footwear innovations
At BASF’s media event at K2019, the company hosted designers from Adidas in a showcase of its materials used in the Futurecraft Loop shoe. All components of the running shoe were made in thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) so it could be designed to be fully recyclable. Sustainability has become a major issue for shoe brands and their design departments are taking a close look at shoe materials to see how approaches such as recyclability and bio-based polymers can help them reach their sustainability goals. As well as this focus on polymers – such as EVA, PUR and TPU which are commonly used in the sole structures of sports shoes – plastics companies are also drawing designers’ attention to manufacturing processes and the innovation possibilities in injection moulding and 3D printing. In 2020,On, the Swiss-based running shoe brand, launched its own statement shoe called Cyclon. This, it said, is “the shoe you’ll never own” as the customer buys it in a subscription service so that it can be returned when it becomes worn out and replaced with a new pair. That means On can capture most or all of the end-of-life shoes for recycling. Caspar Coppetti, Co-Founder of On, says: “It’s a concept unlike anything out there and, we hope, a turning point for the running industry.” Sustainabil- ity is doubled up as 100% of the shoe can be
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recycled and it is made using bio-based polymers. Olivier Bernhard, Co-Founder and Leader of the
Innovation Team, says: “Making a fully recyclable shoe is one thing. We went a step further. We wanted to show that sustainability and perfor- mance can go hand in hand. The outcome might be the most high-performance shoe we’ve ever engineered.” On worked with Arkema in a two-year project developing the first Cyclon shoe, which uses Arkema’s Rilsan PA11 derived from castor beans in the upper and its Pebax polyether block amide TPE (which is optionally bio-based) in the bottom unit. Creating a textile shoe upper purely from PA11 has never been done before, says On in its Cyclon promotion. “Minimalistic design doesn’t mean sacrificing comfort,” it says. “Since adding extra material is not an option when you’re creating a zero-waste shoe, we created reinforcement using clever heat-pressing and moulding technologies.” The shoe group regularly refers to material and design innovations in its promotions: the Speed- board feature is a stiff PA plate that converts running momentum into forward motion; CloudTec cushion- ing compresses on landing to absorb impact and create a firm platform for an “explosive take-off”; and also at the forefront of On’s design drive is its Helion
Main image: The On Cyclon shoe is made from Arkema bio-based polymers and is sold in a subscription service so that it can be returned for recycling and replaced with a new pair
March 2021 | INJECTION WORLD 13
IMAGE: ON
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