May 24, 2024
On a recent episode of Bloomberg Markets: The Close, CEO Elias Stahl talks about how HILOS approaches sustainable fashion.
More than 24 billion shoes are made every year. Yet 1 in 5 go straight to the landfill.
“The very crux of the problem is we’ve got a market that is fast, that’s creative, that’s driven by trends, and we have a supply chain that is built for a mass market that’s no longer there; it’s slow, it’s wasteful, and it depends on overproduction. So right now, footwear brands are designing for Spring/Summer of ‘26 — that takes about 12 to 18 months to launch a new line into market, and because it’s using injection molding and tooling, there’s a high upfront cost that needs to be amortized across high volume. So we’ve got a supply chain that depends on high volume and waste at the end of the day — waste that you and I are paying for, and that the planet is paying for. This is an industry that is the 4th largest polluter on the planet, accounting for 10% of carbon, and a quarter of chemical use.”
— Elias Stahl
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