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wanting to replace leather altogether,
one must presume he was expressing a
personal point of view. The PPR Group
fortunately continues to love leather,
provided it comes from suppliers who do
things the right way. And few have a
problem with that either.
SENDING THE RIGHT
MESSAGE
More recently and, on the back of an
in-house profit-and-loss analysis
comparing a biodegradable shoe from
the new InCycle collection and a
traditional suede Puma athletic shoe,
which he claimed dramatically
demonstrated the need to increase the
use of sustainable materials, the
executive chairman of Puma called on
governments to reduce the ‘antiquated’
import duties on synthetic materials to
help them compete with leather.
The analysis unfortunately contained
some conclusions that have been
disputed by leather and footwear
industry experts, the least of which was
that if leather was not a sustainable
material, what was?
And now, PPR has suddenly
announced that Jochen Zeitz is to step
down as executive chairman of Puma as
of November 30. One must draw one’s
own conclusions from that. However,
what does come out of this whole sorry
saga is that ill-considered comments by
senior figures can very easily cause a
great deal of unwarranted harm to the
leather and footwear industry’s
environmental reputation in the eyes of
consumers.
While the ongoing pursuit of
sustainability and support for the
environment is laudable and must
continue, it must nevertheless be treated
in a pragmatic and balanced manner.
21
SUSTAINABILITY MUST BE BALANCED
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012 | www.footwearbiz.com
Puma Super Atom football boot from 1952,
the first boot with screw-in studs and,
naturally, a leather upper.
CREDIT: PUMA