Patagonia dresses you head to toe for the outdoors, but they’ve long wanted to take the final step. They now offer a line of performance and casual footwear for travel in the mountains or to the water’s edge.
Latex from Hevea Milk
Environmentally Responsible Leather
The Buzz on Hemp
Vibram® Ecostep™ Outsoles
Many of Patagonia's footwear styles have latex in the outsoles or midsoles; They use only latex from the milk of the hevea tree. The harvesting process is good for the tree, and the milk has a microstructure that when cured creates thousands of tiny air bubbles for natural cushioning.
To ensure that the leather in their footwear leaves the smallest possible footprint, they use leather uppers only from tanneries registered as compliant with ISO 14001. This set of environmental standards measures how efficiently a company uses natural resources, how its processes impact the environment and how closely it adheres to international and local environmental regulations.
Patagonia's use hemp in a variety of ways on our casual shoes, including as a substrate in some soles as well as material for uppers. Shoes made with hemp require no break-in period, breathe better and smell better than those made from leather or synthetics, and are less prone to bacterial build-up, which is a lot healthier on the feet.
During the shoe manufacturing process, scrap rubber is left on the cutting-room floor. But that doesn't mean it has to end up in a landfill. A number of Patagonia's soles are made with up to 30% recycled scrap rubber that would otherwise be thrown away. Recycled rubber is highly abrasion resistant and provides great traction in all kinds of weather and terrain.
