Keen Recommits to Making the ‘World’s Cleanest Shoe’

Alexandra Harrell
·4 min read

With 8 billion people in the world and 24 billion pairs of shoes made annually, per Statista data, every person on Earth consumes an average of three pairs of shoes each year. That means Keen has witnessed the collective footwear industry produce over 1 trillion pairs of shoes since it was founded 20-plus years ago.

As such, the shoemaker acknowledges that making footwear harms the people and planet, especially with the process remaining unchanged for decades. So, the Portland-based brand has set out to do the most meaningful thing it knows how to: reducing impact by recommitting to its mission of creating the world’s cleanest shoes.

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“Keen’s been a team of shoemakers with this purpose since our founding in 2003,” Kirsten Blackburn, director of the Keen Effect at Keen, told Sourcing Journal. “We took our 20th-anniversary last year as an opportunity to reflect back on the impact we’ve had in our first two decades and look forward to where we want to go next.”

Last year, Keen organized its efforts around three “kore” value system pillars: people, planet and product. Its recently released 2023 Impact Report is a reflection of how the brand incorporated those values—from measuring its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions footprint and doubling down on its PFAS-free commitment to partnering with organizations like Intersectional Environmentalist and “democratizing” its community investments strategy—throughout the past year.

“There are hundreds of decisions that go into making a pair of Keen shoes and ‘consciously creating’ means taking each one seriously,” Blackburn said, explaining that the ethos has four main pillars: harvesting, upcycling or recycling materials; sourcing ethically; detoxing its supply chain; and making to keep, or creating shoes that last and are valued.

“It means rethinking the way things are usually done in order to have a more positive effect on people and the planet,” she added.

The family-owned company celebrated its 20th anniversary by setting (and beating) a goal of increasing “Keener” (aka, employee) volunteer hours by 20 percent from 2022, resulting in over 2,337 hours in 2023. Keen said it also “democratized” a portion of its investment dollars to be managed directly by its employees, resulting in donations to an array of nonprofits, including Pie Ranch, an organization cultivating a healthy and just food system through education, and Warrior Expeditions, an outdoor therapy program that helps veterans transition from their wartime experiences through long distance outdoor expeditions.

“Keeners are at the heart of everything we do,” Blackburn said. “We wanted to democratize a portion of our shoe and dollar impact investments to allow more Keeners the opportunity to spread Keen love in their communities and organizations important to them.”

In 2023, Keen “rapidly advanced” its climate journey through five steps. The first was measuring emissions and then setting a goal to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 55 percent and reduce Scope 3 emissions by 62 percent per thousand pairs of shoes made, all from the fiscal year 2021 baseline, by 2033. To work on achieving that goal, all Keen-owned and operated offices, garages and fan engagement centers shifted to 100-percent renewable energy by sourcing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) across all regions where it has an operating footprint. The company also created a “climate task force” to functionally reduce its impact and invested in climate-focused partners like Protect Our Winters and The Conservation Alliance.

“One of my favorite things about Keen is that the Keen Effect work and our ‘consciously created’ efforts extend to every facet of the brand. This is especially true for our climate work,” Blackburn said. “The Keen climate task force is continually collaborating on a climate action roadmap, including everything from logistics efficiencies in shipping to material innovations and renewable energy adoption to employee incentives and education programs.”

On the product pillar, Keen is all about the aforementioned “consciously creating”—harvesting better materials, sourcing ethically and “detoxing” the planet. The outdoor footwear brand said it’s now free of five of the six most harmful chemicals found in manufacturing and is “actively” pursuing eliminating the sixth—solvents—through innovations like Keen.Fusion, a direct inject construction method.

On April 4, the brand launched the Targhee IV hiking boot, made with this technology, introducing one of the industry’s first solvent-free mechanical bonds that fuses the upper and sole of the boot into one piece. The shoe is also backed by Keen’s lifetime delamination-free guarantee, and the company hopes it’s the last hiking boot a consumer ever buys.

“Keen.Fusion is a shining example of ‘consciously created;’ one of our core pillars is making durable products to keep so they can stay in use rather than breaking down over time,” Blackburn said. “We believe that durability is sustainability.”