Altra

Dec 04, 2020

Altra is an American footwear manufacturer founded in 2009 to get everyone out and running. It creates run-improving footwear for the open road or trail, for women, men, and children.

Altra is committed to making the world a better place. It uses unmatched education and inextinguishable passion for running to inspire everyone to start running.

Altra strives to maximize running performance with values such as quality, balance, and less impact. Altra is the first shoe company to introduce an entire line of truly female specific shoes.

American clothing and footwear manufacturer VF Corporation owns Altra as well as other brands such as Eagle Creek, The North Face, Timberland, Vans, Dickies, Eastpak, JanSport, Terra, and Kodiak.

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Sustainability Rating: 4/10

Rating FAQ

Category: Shoes, accessories

For: Women, men, children

Type: Sneakers

Style: Casual

Quality: Medium

Price: $$

Sizes: 5-14

Fabrics: Cotton, polyester, nylon, spandex, polyurethane, rubber, leather

100% Organic: No

100% Vegan: No

Ethical & Fair: Yes

Recycling: Yes

Producing country: Albania, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Keny, Mauritius, Mexico, Republic Of Moldova, Morocco, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam

Certifications: FSC, LWG

Sustainability Practices

Altra is part of one of the biggest apparel retailers in the world. It believes it has a responsibility to make the world a better place. It leverages its scale and impact to protect people and the planet.

The brand wants to help limit climate change by dramatically reducing the impact of its materials. Its Scale for Good business approach focuses on the environment, key materials and products, and worker wellbeing.

However, most of the fabrics used by Altra are highly polluting synthetic petroleum-based fibers such as nylon, polyester, spandex, and polyurethane.

The apparel brand has a Code of Business Conduct and Global Compliance Principles that apply to all its suppliers and subcontractors and sets a clear minimum standard for supply chain partners.

As part of VF Corporation, Altra publishes a list of its manufacturing and processing facilities and makes it available publicly on its corporate website. It monitors most of its supply chain and all its main production sites to ensure compliance with social and labor standards.

The company is expanding its traceability and transparency efforts as well as collaborating with human rights experts, governments, international organizations, and non-profits to conduct ongoing human rights due diligence.

The 2020 Fashion Transparency Index gave VF Corporation a score of 59% based on how much the group discloses about its social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts. VF Corporation earned 7th place in the top 10 most transparent brands.

Altra doesn't use any exotic animal skin, or hair, fur, angora. But it uses leather to manufacture many of its products.

Leather is a cruel, unethical material that hurts people and animals. Leather production also harms the environment by releasing greenhouse gases and wastes. More sustainable alternatives exist.

Sustainability Goals

Altra commits to being a leader in the large-scale commercialization of circular business models by 2030.

It wants to contribute to local communities and empower consumers to live more active and sustainable lifestyles.

Altra has greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in line with meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

It partners with global consultancy the Carbon Trust to gather data from its suppliers and plans an absolute reduction of Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 (2017 baseline).

Altra also plans an absolute reduction of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 (2017 baseline) through a focus on farm-to-retail materials, sourcing operations, and logistics.

Altra aims to halve its upstream environmental impact, farm-to-front door by 2050. It has a system in place to improve the lives of 2 million workers and their communities by 2025.

Buy Here

Discover Altra running shoe collections at altrarunning.com.

Reviews And Experiences With Altra

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What We're Up Against

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