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Sustainable and Circular Footwear Training Program

Project description

Training on circularity in the footwear sector

The footwear industry has experienced increased sales since 1950, with 23.9 billion pairs manufactured in 2022. However, the EU generates over 1 million tonnes of shoe waste annually. End-of-life management is critical due to rising material costs and environmental regulations, yet recycling rates for footwear remain below 5 % due to limited separate collections, complex designs both at chemical and product level, and limited recycling technologies. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SCARPA project will train a new generation of experts in designing circular footwear. Participants will learn about the footwear value chain including the consumer role, recycling technologies for high-value recyclates, and how decisions in one part of the value chain affect overall sustainability, including life cycle assessment (LCA).

Objective

Worldwide consumption of footwear per year per person has increased from 1 pair of shoes in 1950 to over 3 currently. In 2022, approximately 23.9 billion pairs of shoes were produced globally. In the EU alone, it is estimated that the amount of postconsumer shoes waste is over 1 million tonnes per year. End-of-Life (EoL) management is gaining more attention in the footwear industry, due to increased raw material costs, environmental legislations and ambitious textile waste management targets, e.g. 50% of textiles must be recycled and 20% must be reused from 2025 onwards. However, the recycling rate of footwear is still lower than 5%. This is due to the wide variety of components, e.g. footwear can consist of up to 40 different components, which makes a circular approach to EoL challenging. It is clear that footwear needs a radical shift to achieve circularity. This shift involves simpler shoe design with similar functionality, consumers willing to buy sustainable shoes and increase the longevity, installation of collection and sorting infrastructure, and cost-efficient recycling processes producing high quality secondary resources from old shoes.

The SCARPA Doctoral Network on footwear circularity has a clear mission: to train a new generation of experts who possess the skills and fundamental knowledge required to understand how footwear should be designed to allow recycling, how consumers play a role in the value chain, how different recycling technologies can create high value recyclates, and how a decision in one part of the value chain influences the whole value chain’s sustainability, including LCA.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-DN-JD - HORIZON TMA MSCA Doctoral Networks - Joint Doctorates

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-DN-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 154 160,00
Address
SINT PIETERSNIEUWSTRAAT 25
9000 GENT
Belgium

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Region
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Oost-Vlaanderen Arr. Gent
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

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Participants (8)

Partners (20)

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