Finding a sustainable path for the footwear industry  

We all love our shoes, but we want to find a way to tread more lightly on planet earth. Footwear offers an incredible opportunity to shrink our environmental footprint with naturally circular, truly sustainable materials. That’s why NFW has developed an ecosystem of biobased, 100% plastic-free materials for footwear uppers, outsoles, and foams. With this first-in-kind suite of material solutions, brands are delivering game-changing, sustainable products at the price, scale, and performance level their customers expect. 

The footwear industry is big business – and business is booming. In 2021, U.S. sales hit an all-time high: consumers spent more than $100 billion on footwear last year alone. With more than 24 billion pairs of shoes produced globally each year, that environmental impact really adds up. Further, a single shoe may use more than a dozen different materials — many of which contain plastic. Because of this, shoes cannot be easily recycled. Every year in the US, people throw away over 300 million pairs of shoes, 95% of which wind up in landfills. 

Many footwear brands have set bold sustainability targets only to discover that the material supply chain is poorly equipped with cost-effective, performance-ready, truly sustainable materials to support their goals. We’ve changed that. In fact, we’re changing the entire game. With NFW, the impossible shoe is no longer impossible.   

You’ve never met a material like MIRUM®

At last, a climate-friendly, plastic-free solution 

Don’t call it a leather alternative. MIRUM® is so much more. A categorically unique material class, MIRUM® is a durable, premium-feel material family made with 100% biobased ingredients that is perfect for footwear. Because MIRUM® is made from only natural inputs, MIRUM® has an industry-leading minimal carbon footprint, ten times lower than the competition.   

World-class brands like Allbirds, H&M, and Camper are using MIRUM® to redefine what’s possible in footwear. Miraculously customizable, recyclable, and naturally circular, MIRUM® is in a category all its own. Right now, nearly every plant-based leather alternative on the market uses some plastic resin, glue, or coating as a shortcut to meet the performance threshold required for footwear. Not MIRUM®.  

MIRUM® is a sustainable solution for designers and brands looking to shrink their footprint and expand their creative palettes. MIRUM® can incorporate diverse ingredients from the natural world to create entirely unique visual effects. MIRUM® can look like leather or it can break every convention – you decide.