Vagabond

How sustainable is Vagabond?

This screening has been done by Fairify on July 25^th 2020

Vaga­bond is a Swe­dish foot­wear brand that was born in Swe­den in 1973. In its sus­tai­na­bi­li­ty jour­ney, the com­pa­ny is par­ti­cu­lar­ly focu­sing on impro­ving its mate­rials.

Vagabond’s main mate­rial is lea­ther, and it’s a mem­ber of the Lea­ther Wor­king Group, but only sources 52% from LWG rated tan­ne­ries. Though the com­pa­ny is trans­pa­rent about the sub­ject and has the ambi­tion to increase this per­cen­tage to 100%, half of the lea­ther it sources is uncer­ti­fied. Concer­ning its tex­tiles, cot­ton accounts for 1,67% of its mate­rials but is all GOTS cer­ti­fied, and the com­pa­ny has intro­du­ced Ten­cel as an even more envi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly alter­na­tive. While some steps have been taken in the right direc­tion, there’s a lot of room for impro­ve­ment.

The com­pa­ny is taking mea­sures to reduce its car­bon emis­sions and has a tar­get to reduce them by at least 50% by 2030. Vaga­bond aims to achieve this by sour­cing bet­ter mate­rials and impro­ving its packa­ging and trans­port. It men­tions chal­lenges ahead par­ti­cu­lar­ly in fin­ding a more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly alter­na­tive for its glue and rene­wable ener­gy in its sup­ply chain. The com­pa­ny wants to work towards cir­cu­la­ri­ty and has star­ted to col­lect and recycle old Vaga­bond pairs through its I: Col­lect pro­gram to pro­vide the mate­rials for new pairs. In 2020, it will launch the first col­lec­tion with soles made from worn out Vaga­bond shoes.

Vaga­bond owns the fac­to­ry in Viet­nam where most of its shoes are being pro­du­ced, and publishes a fac­to­ry list that includes its lea­ther tan­ne­ries. It also has a Code of Conduct that covers all basic wor­kers’ rights. Howe­ver, it doesn’t men­tion the use of inde­pendent third-par­ty audit orga­ni­za­tions and there’s no evi­dence of pay­ment of a living wage.

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