The blindnessaround CO2 emissions
CO2 emissions reports are usually hard to understand. The methodology used to measure emissions is complex, often vague.
Most companies do not include their supply chain, mostly because they neglect what is happening in them. That is why they publish incomplete results.
We decided to conduct a study about our CO2 emissions to get even deeper into the reality of VEJA.
We tried to make our results accessible for everyone while going deep into a supply chain that we already know intimately.
We believe the only way to defeat blind spots is to calculate everything and release everything.
But first, what are CO2 emissions?
Our collective carbon footprint is how much CO2 (carbon dioxide) and other gases go into the air. A certain amount of carbon dioxide happens naturally in the atmosphere but human activities have increased these levels.
Carbon is everywhere. It is in the air we breathe (and exhale), the food we eat and the products we purchase and use.
1kg of CO2 corresponds to roughly 40 kWh of electricity (in France).
Some examples of what you can power with one kWh :
48 hours of laptop use
Having your television turned on for approximately 3 hours
1 cycle of your washing machine
Using your kettle 10 times
How are these emissions calculated?
We decided to take everything into account.
It means calculating a lot more than what we should, starting with the raw materials, accounting for transportation, the sneaker factories and transportation for shipping.
As lots of companies consider scope 1 and scope 2, the most significant and direct activities, we were mostly interested in scope 3, which is the sneaker production and raw materials.
Where do we do it?
- Northeast of Brazil and Chincha, Peru - Canvas and laces made of organic and agroecological cotton
- Amazon rainforest, Brazil - Soles made of Amazonian rubber
- São Paulo, Brazil - Innovative materials made of recycled polyester
- Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil - C.W.L. (Cotton Worked as Leather), vegan alternative to leather
- Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil & Uruguay - Bovine leather and suede
- Rio Grande do Sul & Fortaleza, Brazil - Products crafted while respecting workers’ rights
- Minas Gerais, Brazil - Plastic bottles collected from the streets and transformed into a 100% recycled polyester lining for VEJA sneakers.
- Île-de-France, France - The logistics of our VEJA stores in Europe and our e-commerce site are managed by Log’ins, a company that promotes social and professional inclusion.
- Felgueiras, Portugal — Sneakers manufactured with respect for workers’ rights.
(Aegean Project: European production).
Organic cotton producer
Brazil, 2018
© VEJA
The big secret of CO2 emissions
When we first gathered all the data, we were very surprised.
Each year since 2019, we conduct a full Carbon Assessment with an independent firm. This tracks emissions (Scopes 1, 2, 3) and identifies the biggest contributors.
But what does each scope mean?
Scope 1 covers VEJA’s direct activities — the emissions linked to what we operate ourselves, like vehicle fuels and building energy
Our emissions were 43 tCO2e for Scope 1 in 2024.
Scope 2 refers to the energy we use directly, such as electricity and heating in our offices and stores.
Our emissions were 56 tCO2e for Scope 2 in 2024.
Scope 3 gives the most complete picture of our impact. It includes everything beyond our direct operations — from raw materials and manufacturing to transport and daily activities across fields and factories.
Our emissions were 79,727 tCO2e for Scope 3 in 2024
For 2024, Quantis analyzed that the vast majority of emissions (99,9%) come from Scope 3 (79,727 tCO₂e), while direct operations remain limited (43 tCO₂e in Scope 1 and 56 tCO₂e in Scope 2).
We were clear that we wanted to calculate everything, from the raw materials passing through production, transportation, and logistics.
Everything is our impact. Only scope 3 matters.
So, why are VEJA's CO2 emissions high?
VEJA’s CO2 emissions are high compared to other brands because we take everything into account.
Top contributors of VEJA’s CO2 emissions in 2024
RAW MATERIALS IN 2024, 84%
All the raw materials we use to produce our shoes such as leather, organic cotton, and Amazonian rubber and other materials, as well as the energy used to process and transform them throughout the supply chain.
END OF LIFE IN 2024, 4%
Activities associated with the end of life of VEJA sneakers, including repair, reuse, recycling, and disposal processes and disposal processes of sneakers and its packaging.
TRANSPORTATION IN 2024, 3%
This category includes emissions from transporting raw materials to manufacturing sites, as well as delivering finished shoes to warehouses, retailers, and customers.
Which emissions for
which models?
© Vincent Desailly
Our analysis shows that leather and suede models are consistently among the most carbon-intensive, highlighting the major role of material choice. Meanwhile, models using alternative or recycled materials generally present much lower emissions.
The impact of leather
88% of our CO2emissions are generated by our raw materials: organic cotton, Amazonian rubber, leather and innovative materials such as B-Mesh, Hexamesh and Alveomesh. 79% of those emissions are due to leather.
Understanding this impact requires looking beyond the finished product and considering the entire value chain, from farms to tanneries.
We work to improve traceability at each step. Today, we can track our leather from direct partner farmers to slaughterhouses, although indirect farms (where calves are bred before reaching our partners) remain more complex to map.
Leather factory
Brazil, 2018
© VEJA
Cattle
Brazil
© VEJA
The leather used to produce our sneakers comes from farms in Southern Brazil and does not come from any areas suffering deforestation.
While leather is not always the lowest-impact material, it contributes to durability and longer product lifetimes. Because cattle are primarily raised for meat rather than skin, leather is considered a by-product that we actively support in being responsibly valorized under our transparency standards, helping to avoid more impactful end-of-life alternatives.
On average, 70% of the leather carbon footprint occurs during cattle raising (mostly cattle natural digestion process). The remaining 30% is from leather production, tanning and transportation.
Since 2008, we have been working on ways to improve the leather production chain and focusing on its traceability and chemical transparency.
© VEJA
At the same time, we continued to explore alternatives. After several years of research, we introduced C.W.L. (Cotton Worked as Leather) in 2019 — a vegan material made from organic cotton canvas coated with corn starch and ricinus oil — developed as a lower-impact option compared to plastic-based alternatives.
C.W.L. is produced in Brazil, in a factory that monitors the use of water and chemicals.
We upcycle plastic bottles to turn them into alternative materials to give waste a second life.
B-mesh is a fabric entirely made of recycled polyester and Hexamesh is composed of 70% organic cotton and 30% recycled plastic bottles.
Plastic bottles before transformation
© VEJA
The impact of organic cotton and Amazonian rubber
Growing, collecting, and transforming our organic cotton and Amazonian rubber accounts for 6.5% of our raw materials emissions.
Bleeding in Amazonian rubber
Brazil, 2016
© VEJA
Organic cotton and Amazonian rubber are some of the main materials of our sneakers.
We bought more than 4,000 tons of Amazonian rubber and 1,843 tons of organic cotton from 2004 till the end of 2024.
As we work every day with families of producers, we are aware of our impact on the fields. Sourcing materials directly from the fields brings important benefits: buying Amazonian rubber from rubber tappers enhances the economic value of the forest and the families who protect it. They earn more money tapping rubber than raising cattle, contributing to the fight against deforestation.
VEJA’s outsoles are made with up to 50% Amazonian rubber.
Outsoles in Amazonian rubber
Brazil, 2019
@VEJA
Even with the increase in production, in 2024 alone we saved over 923 tons of CO₂e just by replacing synthetic rubber with Amazonian rubber. This difference is due to newly calculated emission factors for both materials, as well as the increased use of Amazonian rubber in our collections.
The impact of Amazonian rubber is 0.27 tCO₂e per ton, compared to 3.08 tCO₂e per ton for synthetic rubber.
Amazonian rubber emits about 91% fewer greenhouse gases than conventional synthetic rubber used in the industry.
Practicing agroecology for the organic cotton used in our sneakers helps with carbon absorption.
It also fertilizes the soil and optimizes the water cycle without using any pesticides or chemicals. In a more specific way, VEJA uses regenerative agriculture.
Cotton is organic, but the way it is grown goes even further: it is harvested in the same field as subsistence crops like corn, sesame, or beans. This allows the producers to have food independence while enriching the soil.
Cotton bolls
Brazil, 2018
@Melanie Bahuon
All our raw materials come from Brazil and Peru. They are transported by truck and vessel from the fields directly to our different factories. This way, we ensure we avoid the impact of transatlantic transportation.
Shipping by boat
or by plane?
At VEJA, we primarily use maritime transport to ship our sneakers from Brazil to our logistics centers, relying on air freight only occasionally.
In 2019, our data showed a clear imbalance: although air transport represented only 19% of shipments, it generated 95% of CO₂ emissions related to distribution, as it is a much more carbon-intensive mode of transport.
Recognizing this, we began taking action in 2020, reducing the share of air freight to 7%, and in 2021 we set the goal of gradually phasing out flights from Brazil to retailers, despite ongoing commercial pressure for faster deliveries.
By 2024, only around 0.2% of the pairs produced in Brazil were shipped by air.
Even with this small share, air freight still accounted for 48.2% of emissions from sneaker transportation.
Thanks to the predominance of maritime shipping, we have significantly reduced the CO₂ emissions associated with distributing our sneakers.
The teams’ carbon print
For us, the change had to start with our daily practices at the offices.
We gathered the data from all our VEJA team members and staff about trips taken throughout the year.
To reduce this percentage, when traveling is needed for conferences or trades, we use the train as the preferred mode of transport for trips under six hours, whenever feasible.
Since our offices are located in cities like Paris, São Paulo, and New York, our teams are encouraged to use public transport, bicycles, or even walk to the office whenever it is more convenient in big cities.
In Brazil, we use three cars as some of our factories and fields are only accessible by vehicle.
Part of the VEJA Team
Peru, 2019
© VEJA
Collect, repair, recycle
Recycling box at VEJA x Darwin
Bordeaux, 2020
© VEJA
The end of life of our sneakers generates 4% of our emissions. Even though those emissions are not high, it has always been one of our biggest concerns.
In June 2020, VEJA chose Darwin to open its first store dedicated to repair and recycling projects.
The VEJA x Darwin project offers never-released VEJA prototypes, sneakers with minor defects, and some pairs from past collections at reduced prices.
We implemented a cobbler service in the store: three cobblers repair all VEJA sneakers, as well as those of other brands. For pairs that cannot be repaired, we have installed collection containers in stations to recycle them and give them a second life.
For us, the most sustainable sneakers are the ones you are wearing.
Even if they belong to another brand.
VEJA x Darwin
Bordeaux, 2020
© VEJA
The missing results
The last study does not include several relevant sources of emissions and impacts due to methodological and data constraints:
- Waste generated by the shops and warehouses we collaborate with was not accounted for.
- The delivery chain from retailers to the final customers was not considered.
These exclusions reflect challenges in data availability and the scope of the current tool, which focuses primarily on raw material production and assembly phases. Future studies should aim to incorporate these categories to provide a more comprehensive environmental footprint.
