There are 8 billion people in the world and 24 billion pairs of shoes made every year. That is 3 pairs of shoes for every person on the planet, every year. The truth is that traditional shoemaking is harmful to the planet and people, yet has remained unchanged for decades. KEEN believes that we are facing one of the most pressing challenges of our time, and that the fate of our planet and the people who live on it is in our collective hands. As shoemakers, KEEN knows that the most meaningful thing it can do is reduce the impact of how it makes shoes.
In 2023, KEEN organized its efforts for greatest impact around three Kore Value System Pillars: People, Planet, and Product. KEEN's 2023 Impact Report is a reflection of how the brand leads with values. Key highlights include:
- People: In addition to fostering community within its employees, or "KEENers," the brand celebrated its 20th anniversary by setting and beating a goal to increase KEENer volunteer hours by 20% from 2022, resulting in over 2,337 hours in 2023. KEEN also democratized a portion of its investment dollars to be managed directly by KEENers, resulting in donations to nonprofits such as Pie Ranch, the City Union Mission, Mazamas, and Warrior Expeditions.
- Planet: In 2023, KEEN rapidly advanced its Climate Journey through five critical steps: measuring its Greenhouse Gas Footprint, setting a science-aligned goal to reduce its emissions, shifting to renewable energy, creating a KEEN climate task force, and investing in climate-focused partners such as Protect Our Winters and The Conservation Alliance.
- Product: At KEEN, Consciously Creating means harvesting better materials, sourcing ethically, detoxing the planet, and making for life. KEEN is now free of five of the six most harmful chemicals in manufacturing, and is actively working to eliminate the sixth—solvents—through innovations such as KEEN.FUSION, a direct inject construction method. In 2023, KEEN celebrated six years of being PFAS Free, updated its PFAS Free Green Paper for other brands to follow suit, and published its second Green Paper which outlines how to eliminate antimicrobials, another class of toxic chemicals.
As it looks ahead to the next decade, KEEN is investing in momentous partnerships and processes to push the boundaries of Consciously Created shoemaking. This includes sponsoring best-in-class advocates and changemakers—filmmaker Max Romey and Intersectional Environmentalist, the team behind The Joy Report podcast—to educate around the climate crisis and engage communities in finding solutions.
- Through its official partnership with Max Romey, KEEN is making strides towards educating on the climate topics critical to our daily lives—starting with the videos "What Is PFAS Free?" and "What Is Consciously Created?." KEEN, alongside Protect Our Winters, is also the title sponsor of Romey's documentary Footprints on Katmai, which will premiere at the MountainFilm festival in Telluride, CO in May 2024. Through this, the trio is raising awareness around the shocking reality of ocean plastics, and how we can all take small steps in the right direction.
- Alongside Intersectional Environmentalist, KEEN is sponsoring the relaunch of The Joy Report podcast in April 2024 to share critical stories about climate topics such as conscious consumerism and PFAS—and inspire intersectionality and optimism among its listeners. KEEN and IE will celebrate the relaunch with an Earth Sessions community event at KEEN HQ in Portland, OR on April 18th, featuring a panel discussion with IE co-founders Leah Thomas, Kiana Kazemi, and Diandra Marizet Esparza.
To round out these investments, KEEN believes that sustainability is durability and has used innovations in manufacturing to solve a common shoe industry problem: delamination. Delamination is when the cement-based glue that adheres a shoe's upper and rubber sole degrades, causing the sole to peel off the shoe. On April 4th, KEEN is launching the Targhee IV hiking boot, made with KEEN.FUSION technology, to create one of the industry's first solvent-free mechanical bonds that fuses the upper and sole of the boot into one piece. This innovative construction tackles delamination head-on and is backed by KEEN's Lifetime Delamination-Free Guarantee, so that the Targhee IV is the last hiking boot you'll ever buy.
For the past 20 years—and through the next 20 and beyond—KEEN is committed to not only shaping broader industry standards, but also underscoring the potential for footwear companies to innovate processes that are better for our world.
About KEEN
KEEN is a shoemaker with purpose. Family-owned and values-led for over 20 years, KEEN has been consciously making unapologetically comfortable, innovative footwear that lasts and using its business to do good.
In 2003, KEEN started a revolution with the introduction of the original hybrid sandal, the Newport. As revolutionary, thoughtful shoemakers, KEEN is determined to reduce the impact of how they make shoes. They've been PFAS free since 2018 and envision a shoe industry that has a net positive impact on lives. To get there, they're sharing their sustainable innovations to do more good together. Learn more at keenfootwear.com.
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