Needs Work
Although Merrell makes some of the outdoor industry’s most well-loved footwear, it is far from a sustainability leader. Unlike leading brands, Merrell has yet to complete a full inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions, lacks circularity services, and has made only limited progress toward reducing its chemical impacts. Still, the brand is making progress toward using low-impact packaging, incorporating recycled materials into its products, and sourcing responsible natural fibers. Interested in learning more? We get into the details below.
This sustainability analysis evaluates both product- and brand-level initiatives to capture the full scope of Merrell’s efforts to reduce its environmental impact. Our research draws from Merrell’s published sustainability data, other reputable sources, third-party certifications (a cornerstone of our process), and correspondence with brand representatives. We have independently researched eight Merrell products to date, giving us an understanding of the brand’s use of low-impact materials, chemistry, and manufacturing practices.
You can also explore our analyses of other outdoor brands, or use our advanced search to find products that align with your sustainability values.
Merrell’s transparency rates as “Needs Work.” The sustainability page on its website is mediocre at best—it outlines the company’s goals but doesn’t publish any data outlining its progress toward them. Merrell’s product pages include a detailed breakdown of recycled material content. Its parent company’s impact report lacks substantial data about recycled materials and Bluesign material use. Unfortunately, Merrell representatives have not been responsive to inquiries, although the live chat feature on its website is somewhat useful.
Recycled materials have a smaller carbon footprint than their virgin counterparts and, as a result, have become a key component of many brands’ journey to reduce emissions. While apparel brands have made impressive strides to replace virgin synthetics with recycled alternatives, footwear brands lag behind—Merrell is no exception, but it is making respectable progress for the category. Although Merrell incorporates recycled materials into many of its products, it doesn’t report a statistic on its total use of these low-impact materials. In most cases, we’ve seen small amounts of recycled content in Merrell footwear (such as liners and laces), but increasingly the brand is innovating with mostly recycled uppers. While it set a target to incorporate organic, recycled, or renewable materials into all its products by 2025, Merrell has yet to report on whether it has achieved its goal.
Bluesign is the leading system for chemical impact and water management in the textile industry, and many outdoor brands use Bluesign-approved materials to reduce their impact. Materials are produced under thorough oversight throughout the supply chain, from the chemical supplier to the finished goods manufacturer. Still, these low-impact materials are much more common in apparel than in footwear (to date, only a handful of footwear brands make shoes with Bluesign-approved materials). Merrell is not a Bluesign System Partner, and we haven’t found any Bluesign-approved materials in the Merrell products we’ve researched.
In 2023, Merrell’s parent company, Wolverine Worldwide, banned PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, from its products. PFAS, often referred to as “forever chemicals,” were once common in outdoor gear and apparel for their impressive water- and stain-resistant properties. Unfortunately, the chemicals are extremely persistent in the environment and have serious impacts on human health. As a result, in 2025, California and New York banned the chemicals from use in outdoor apparel, spurring a shift away from PFAS in the outdoor industry. Now, to ensure compliance, Wolverine Worldwide requires that all materials and components be tested and meet its non-detectable PFAS limit, and all products are free from intentionally-added PFAS.
Many brands use third-party-certified, responsibly sourced natural fibers to ensure animal welfare and reduce the environmental impact of materials like leather, cotton, and wool. In 2024 (the most recent available data), all leather purchased by Wolverine Worldwide subsidiary companies, including Merrell, came from Leather Working Group Silver- or Gold-rated tanneries. Leather Working Group leather is a byproduct of the meat industry, and tanneries are audited against chemical and waste management standards. Additionally, all of the down that Merrell uses is certified to the Responsible Down Standard, ensuring traceability. Merrell does not use third-party certified wool in its products.
Wolverine Worldwide brands are also experimenting with algae-based and other bio-based materials in their products. Although it doesn’t specifically report on Merrell’s progress, in 2024, it reported using bio-based materials in 860,000 pairs of shoes, with 62 styles incorporating Bloom algae (which captures carbon from the atmosphere) into insoles, midsoles, or footbeds.
Wolverine Worldwide, Merrell’s parent company, sources its footwear materials from 250 suppliers spanning 13 countries; footwear is made in 105 factories, most of which are located in Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Wolverine Worldwide maintains a code of conduct for its suppliers, and in 2024, it audited 96% of its Tier 1 (finished goods) factories, either through internal teams or certified third-party auditors. Audits address topics including slavery, forced labor, wages, working hours, environmental compliance, waste management, and more. However, because audits are conducted internally, they do not meet our responsible manufacturing criteria. To do so, we require brands to participate in a third-party program that provides certification and regular audits of factories to ensure safe working conditions, fair wages, and reduced environmental impact.
Packaging is one of the most visible, consumer-facing signs of a brand’s environmental impact (despite accounting for only a small fraction of a brand’s total emissions). The majority of Wolverine Worldwide’s boxes are made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Recycled or FSC Mix materials, ensuring that the packaging is made from responsibly managed forests or recycled content. (FSC Mix materials feature 80% post-consumer recycled content.) Many of its brands use recycled Kraft paper, and logos on shoeboxes use soy or water-based inks (which are more easily recyclable than petroleum-based inks). Additionally, Wolverine Worldwide shipping cartons are made from recycled paper, and instead of using poly bags, it shrink-wraps online orders (using less plastic than poly bags). Unfortunately, the shrink wrap is not made from recycled plastic, and many brands have eliminated plastic bags rather than shrink wrapping.
Repair programs help you keep your gear in use longer, and many brands offer comprehensive services to get your gear back on the trail. Still, these services are much less common in footwear than in apparel and hard goods; select brands, like Danner, offer resoling and repair services, but such programs are far from the industry standard. Unfortunately, Merrell does not offer repair services for its footwear or apparel. Instead, the brand offers a limited warranty for defective products (which does not cover wear and tear, accident, or natural breakdown).
Unfortunately, Merrell does not offer resale or recycling services for its footwear. In 2022, the brand piloted a takeback and recycling program called ReTread, but unfortunately, the program was discontinued, and no longer exists today. Circularity programs like resale and recycling services are less common in footwear than in apparel categories, but footwear brands like On and Brooks offer Onward and ReStart, respectively, proving that they can indeed exist. Recycling services are especially important for footwear because it’s a category of outdoor gear that users wear through quickly. There are 23.8 billion pairs of shoes manufactured annually, and 90% of discarded footwear ends up in the landfill or incinerator. Unfortunately, footwear is made of multiple materials and is difficult to disassemble, making recycling challenging. Additionally, shoes are much harder to resell than other categories of gear, due to increased wear during use.
Compared to leading brands, Wolverine Worldwide is well below industry standard when it comes to tracking and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Most major outdoor brands started tracking their carbon footprint around 2018, and many report annually on their tracking data in accordance with science-based emissions reduction targets. Wolverine Worldwide first accounted for its greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, publishing its data in its 2024 annual impact report. Unfortunately, the company only measured its Scope 1 and 2 emissions (from owned operations and purchased electricity), which typically account for less than 5% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Wolverine Worldwide states that it is in the process of collecting Scope 3 data, but has yet to report on it. The company also has not yet set emissions reduction targets, placing it a major step behind leading brands, which are well on their way to reducing emissions in line with these targets. Still, we appreciate that Wolverine Worldwide has purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to offset its North American energy usage since 2015. Unfortunately, this is far from a replacement for substantive supply chain emissions reduction.
Like many large parent companies, Wolverine Worldwide publishes an annual impact report covering its subsidiary brands’ sustainability data. Impact reports are a key source of sustainability data, offering insight into a brand’s progress to reduce its impact. Although the Wolverine Worldwide report addresses many of our sustainability criteria, it lacks much of the data that other companies report on, like statistics on the usage of recycled and Bluesign-approved materials. Sustainability information specific to Merrell in the most recent report (published in 2024) is limited—the report generally covers Wolverine Worldwide brands rather than focusing on individual brands’ data. Still, the report covers topics like packaging, Scope 1 and 2 emissions data, PFAS, and responsible materials.
Merrell is a member of the Outdoor Industry Association’s Clean Air Coalition, which works to improve air quality and take climate action. The Outdoor Industry Association is a group of brands that collaborates to develop sustainability initiatives, engage in policy, and advocate for the outdoor industry on a variety of topics. Merrell has been a member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (now Cascale) since 2018, a group of brands that works to reduce the environmental impact and promote worker rights in the apparel, footwear, and textile industries.
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