We certainly don't want to appear alarming.
But we do have some alarming news.

This will come as no surprise: the fashion industry is running the wrong way. Mass production, on the other side of the world. Opaque conditions. At the expense of local communities. Negligible prices. Poor quality. Tonnes of waste generated. Super-super-profits.

In reality, we all know the solution.

Applying reason to everything we do.

Reason is our emotional intelligence. It is what sets us apart from machines. It is that small voice that questions everything we do to ensure it aligns with our human ethics. We all have it, but we choose, to varying degrees, whether to listen to it. For us, our reason for a more virtuous world dictates the following:

European Production.

Our regions have heritage.

Working with local partners means ensuring their excellence and craftsmanship, and being able to visit them regularly. We are not chauvinistic, but we care deeply about collaborating with partners who are as close to us as possible: Bordeaux, the west coast, and more broadly France, Italy and Portugal.

European materials.

The best material is the one that hasn't travelled around the world three times.

It would make no sense to work with local craftspeople using materials sourced from far away. In our pursuit of short-circuit production, we work every day to source innovative materials as close to home as possible. This work allows us to guarantee full traceability of our products, as well as complete control over our supply chain, to preserve transparency and minimise our carbon footprint.

Using only recycled materials.

Old is new.

Challenge: producing a new product inevitably has a heavy environmental impact.

Solution: produce nothing new (when we told you it was above all a matter of common sense and reason…)

Re-use. Upcycle. By giving a second life to recovered materials, we produce nothing new, and we help recycle tonnes of resources. This commitment is the certainty of contributing to current waste management challenges, while minimising our ecological footprint as much as possible. Strike.

The most sustainable materials.

The antithesis of fast fashion.

Proof that today's world is heading in the wrong direction: if clothes were meant to be changed every 2 months, we would have called wardrobes something else. So we trust our reason and common sense. We create truly durable products so they can accompany you for as long as possible.

Giving trainers a new life at end of use.

Nothing is lost, everything is transformed.

In France, nearly 90% of shoes end up in the bin to be incinerated or landfilled, because their multiple materials are very complex to separate.

As a result, barely 10% of the material is actually recycled. By dropping off your old Zèta shoes at a collection point, you reverse the trend. Your pair will be reused or transformed into new materials such as insulation. It is to reward this effort that we give you your 150 points.

Conclusion.

We measure our carbon footprint.

In 2023, we collaborated with a consultancy to calculate the carbon impact of a pair of Zèta shoes using ADEME tools. Materials, manufacturing, transport, sales, end of life… Everything is calculated to obtain this precious result: 6.3kg of CO2, across all its life stages.

Concretely, that is 2.6X less than a pair from one of our competitors whose name starts with an N and contains 4 letters. But whom we cannot name, as that would reveal real information that apparently embarrasses them. Go figure. Our report is available here.