image copyright: Adidas/Parley

The Adidas Group has just partnered with Parley for the Oceans, an initiative dedicated to raising awareness about the beauty and fragility of the oceans and to collaborating on projects that can end their destruction, to design and produce a sneaker whose shoe upper is made entirely of yarns and filaments reclaimed and recycled from ocean waste and illegal deep-sea gillnets. Gillnets are a type of mesh net that’s designed to only let a fish’s head pass through, but not the rest of its body. As the fish struggles, the net slips behind its gills and prevents it from escaping. The nets were confiscated by the conservation group Sea Shepherd, from a poaching vessel off the coast of West Africa.

“The conservation of the oceans is a cause that is close to my heart and those of many employees at the Adidas Group,” said Eric Liedtke, Adidas Group executive board member responsible for global brands. “By partnering with Parley for the Oceans we are contributing to a great environmental cause. We co-create fabrics made from ocean plastic waste which we will integrate into our product.”