Veja Running

Like the Veja sne­akers, the run­ning shoe is made in Bra­zil in good wor­king con­di­ti­ons. The brand wor­ks clo­sely with all the­ir fac­to­ri­es, and assu­res the con­su­mers of ethi­cal prac­ti­ces wit­hin the­ir factories.They have wor­ked with the same faci­li­ti­es for many years, and have inves­ted more money into Bra­zi­li­an pro­duc­ti­on as com­pa­red to ave­ra­ge shoe bran­ds who pro­du­ce in Asia. 

The out­so­le of the shoe con­sis­ts of wild rub­ber, recy­cled rub­ber, and syn­t­he­tic rub­ber. Part of the midd­le sole is made from natu­ral mate­ri­als inclu­ding bana­na oil, sugar cane, and rice hull, a was­te pro­duct from the food indus­try. The other part of the midd­le sole is made of soft plas­tic E.V.A (Ethyle­ne Vinyl Ace­ta­te) which has the same quali­ti­es as rub­ber. Com­pa­red to other plas­tics, it is more resis­tant to heat, cold and UV radi­ati­on, and E.V.A is pro­du­ced wit­ho­ut the addi­ti­on of har­m­ful che­mi­cals, such as BPA, Chlo­ri­ne or Pht­ha­la­te. For the fabric at the top, Veja uses the inno­va­ti­ve mate­ri­al Alve­omesh, which is made from 100% recy­cled plas­tic bottles. 

They have a strict che­mi­cal policy, the deta­ils of which they have tran­s­pa­ren­tly publi­shed on the website. 

This line of sho­es uses a lot of recy­cled mate­ri­als, and the brand has set up a take-back and repa­ir sche­me for old Veja sho­es which reflec­ts the­ir dedi­ca­ti­on to cir­cu­la­rity.

Whi­le the brand is headqu­ar­te­red in Paris, all of the pro­duc­ti­on is con­duc­ted local to the sour­cing of the mate­ri­als, in Bra­zil and Peru. This keeps the len­g­th of the cha­in as short as possi­ble. They also keep air tran­s­port to a mini­mum of 2.2%, only using it for urgent shipments.

This par­ti­cu­lar line of sho­es does not con­ta­in any ani­mal mate­ri­als.

An eco­lo­gi­cal run­ning shoe is still hard to find. In fact, 99% of run­ning sho­es are made of plas­tic, 99% of which is petro­le­um (oil). Both are not renewa­ble mate­ri­als that cause dama­ge to people and the envi­ron­ment. It took Veja four years of rese­ar­ch to deve­lop the first eco­lo­gi­cal run­ning shoe, but the resul­ts are impressive.

Thro­ugh a com­bi­na­ti­on of inno­va­ti­ve tec­h­niqu­es, fabrics and com­bi­na­ti­ons, Veja has mana­ged to suc­ce­s­sful­ly laun­ch the­ir very first run­ning shoe. Veja has found the per­fect balan­ce betwe­en using sus­ta­ina­ble mate­ri­als and opti­mi­zing your run­ning per­for­man­ce. The sha­pe of the shoe is ins­pi­red by the bone struc­tu­re of the South Ame­ri­can bird the con­dor, hen­ce the name. The shoe has a biomi­me­tic design, flexi­bi­lity and lig­h­t­ness suita­ble for running. 

The brand is very tran­s­pa­rent in most aspec­ts. They pro­vi­de a zip fol­der of all the­ir cer­ti­fi­ca­tes – a rare thing to see that COSH! real­ly com­men­ds. They also pro­vi­de a map with all of the­ir manu­fac­tu­ring and sup­pli­er faci­li­ti­es, and publish the­ir che­mi­cal test resul­ts online.