Toms Shoes

How sustainable is TOMS Shoes?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­rify on April 4^th 2020

Tom’s shoes is an Ame­ri­can foot­wear brand that has gai­ned inter­na­tio­nal fame with its one for one cam­paign, giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold. The ori­gin story of the foun­der, who wan­ted to help kids in Argen­ti­na by pro­vi­ding them with a pair of shoes, was not only a social ges­tu­re, but also a great mar­ke­ting cam­paign that made pur­cha­sing a pair of Tom’s an act of cha­rity. This has resul­ted in sky­roc­ke­ting sales and the dona­tion of over 95 million pairs of shoes. Although the actual impact of giving away shoes is pro­ven to be insig­ni­fi­cant, Tom’s Shoes is a com­pany with a social mis­sion and has always been about hel­ping. What’s more rele­vant now, is how it per­forms in terms of trans­pa­rency and sus­tai­na­bi­lity, which is unfor­tu­na­tely qui­te poor.

The com­pany publishes a yearly impact report, but this report is mostly about what it does to give back. At Fai­rify, we usually don’t take cha­ri­ties into con­si­de­ra­tion much, becau­se it’s a fairly easy way for com­pa­nies to polish their ima­ge without actually impro­ving the core of their busi­ness. This is the reason why the report that Tom’s Shoes publishes doesn’t pro­vi­de us with much rele­vant infor­ma­tion about actual cor­po­ra­te sus­tai­na­bi­lity. The com­pany doesn’t pro­vi­de any infor­ma­tion about its car­bon foot­print and doesn’t publish rele­vant data on topics like rene­wa­ble energy, water con­sum­ption, trans­por­ta­tion emis­sions or the impact of its pac­ka­ging. And even though the com­pany does publish a list of mate­rials it uses in its pro­duc­tion pro­cess, it lacks per­cen­ta­ges and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, which allow us insight into how sus­tai­na­ble its pro­ducts truly are. Besi­des that, when you give back a pair of shoes for every pair you sell, the impact of the pro­duc­tion on the envi­ron­ment is dou­bled as well.

The­re is something to be said for Tom’s Shoes though. The com­pany has been in very bad finan­cial weather and without a pro­per busi­ness model it’s very dif­fi­cult to impro­ve sus­tai­nably. It takes time and money to green up a com­pany and the com­pany has recently drop­ped the one for one model, repla­cing it with dona­ting a dollar for every three dollar. This allows them to impro­ve its posi­ti­ve impact and makes the dona­tions more fle­xi­ble and more effi­cient. The­re are tar­gets in pla­ce for envi­ron­men­tal impro­ve­ment and Tom’s Shoes men­tions that it is its goal to mea­su­re its car­bon foot­print in 2020 and from the­re on impro­ve it every year. There’s also a tar­get set to expand its use of sus­tai­na­ble cot­ton, which should be at 100% by 2025, and pac­ka­ging should be made with at least 80% recy­cled mate­rials. The dead­li­ne for this goal and current per­cen­ta­ges are left out. A bright note is that the com­pany does publish a fac­tory list and has a part­nership with the Fair Wear Foun­da­tion and Ele­va­te, that con­duct third-party audits to ensu­re social stan­dards in the supply chain. The foot­wear brand also has a part­nership with the Leather Wor­king Group and sta­tes that it uses 100% of its leather from gold or sil­ver rated LWG leather manu­fac­tu­rers, so in terms of ani­mal pro­ducts and wor­kers’ rights, the com­pany is doing well.

The lack of cli­ma­te action and trans­pa­rency con­cer­ning the ope­ra­tions of the com­pany is con­cer­ning, but Tom’s Shoes shows that it’s rapidly chan­ging for the bet­ter. It’s defi­ni­tely an inter­es­ting com­pany with a lot of poten­tial, but for now we’ll have to wait and see whether impro­ve­ment is truly on its way. We cer­tainly hope so.

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