Footwear Futures: Building Circular Infrastructure Through Collective Action

What does it take to build a circular footwear system that actually works at scale? How do brands, recyclers, sorters, and community organizations align around a shared model when their incentives and goals differ?

Building circular infrastructure for footwear requires the entire system working from the same playbook. This session brings together partners from The Footwear Collective’s Footwear Futures Project, a first-of-its-kind collective take-back program launched in Los Angeles in 2025, to share what’s working, what’s not, and what it takes to align brands, reverse logistics, sorting technology, recycling capacity, and workforce development around a shared circular system. Hear how collaboration is unlocking infrastructure that no single company could build alone and join us to discuss what comes next.