Our editors curate highly rated brands that are first assessed by our rigorous ratings system. Buying through our links may earn us a commission—supporting the work we do. Learn more.
Is Puma ethical? Sportswear giant Puma has been working hard to meet its sustainability targets, earning the brand a “Good” rating. But it still has some work to do, especially when it comes to paying a living wage. This article is based on the Puma rating published in July 2023 and may not reflect claims the brand has made since then. Our ratings analysts are constantly rerating the thousands of brands you can check on our directory.
Is Puma’s sustainability strategy paying off?
Out of the three major sportswear retailers, we’ve already touched on Nike and Adidas’ sustainability practices, so it was high time we took a closer look at the third: Puma.
Puma was officially founded in Germany in 1948, but the story goes back well before then, and it’s the stuff of sneakerhead legend.
In the 1920s, brothers Rudolf and Adolf Dassler founded “Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik” (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory) in their hometown of Herzogenaurach, Germany. The two brothers fell out and went their separate ways: Adolf created Adidas, and Rudolf launched Puma.
More than 60 years later, both brands have grown significantly. Like Adidas, Puma has relentlessly pushed sportswear forward by creating innovative gear that is endorsed by some of the world’s leading athletes.
Puma has been doing a lot on the sustainability front. In 2019, it introduced a set of sustainability targets, which it later used to structure its FOREVER BETTER sustainability strategy and 10FOR25 goals—10 areas the company intends to improve on by 2025. Anne-Laure Descours, Puma’s Chief Sourcing Officer explains that the targets “cover a wide range of sustainability topics, including human rights, climate and circularity. Our targets are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and ensure that PUMA works on making its core business more sustainable.”
As part of Puma’s strategy, it has been working towards creating more sustainable products, like the recently announced Re: Suede 2.0 sneakers after a two-year pilot project, where it tested the sneaker’s compostability under controlled industrial conditions. A commercial version of the style is now available, and once customers have worn them out, they can return them to Puma for industrial composting in exchange for a 20% discount voucher. Descours describes the project as “an important step towards finding viable end-of-life solutions for our footwear.”
Puma continues to report regularly on its targets, and it has also introduced the Re:Gen Report—a 10-part podcast series that dives deeper into its sustainability efforts, which is an industry first.
These strategies seem to be paying off as the sportswear powerhouse is “reporting an absolute GHG reduction of 29% when compared to a baseline figure from 2017,” according to Supply Chain Digital—all while doubling its revenue.
But what do our ratings say? How else have these efforts impacted people, the planet and animals? How ethical is Puma? Let’s take a look.
Environmental impact
We rate Puma’s environmental impact “Good”—an improvement from its previous “It’s a Start” rating.
Puma uses some lower-impact materials, including recycled materials. It has also set a science-based target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated from its operations and supply chain, and it is on track to meet its target. It supports industry organisations that work to address the impacts of microplastics, has published a biodiversity protection policy that applies to its entire supply chain and has set a target to eliminate hazardous chemicals from manufacturing, which the brand claims is on track.
Labour conditions
Puma’s labour rating remains “It’s a Start”.
Its supply chain auditing is accredited by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and applies to all of the final stages of production, which is a good start. Puma also reported that in 2023 it met one of the human rights targets in its 10FOR25 strategy early by “training more than 220,000 factory workers on women’s empowerment and completely mapping subcontractors and Tier 2 suppliers for human rights risks.”
That being said, we found no evidence Puma implements practices to encourage diversity and inclusion in most of its supply chain. Moreover, the brand ensures some workers in the final production stage are paid living wages, which is an improvement from past reviews, but this initiative doesn’t cover the entire supply chain, which is vital.
Animal welfare
Finally, when it comes to animal welfare, we rate Puma “It’s a Start”, a significant bump from its previous “Not Good Enough” rating in this area.
The brand has a formal animal welfare policy aligned with Five Freedoms and some implementation. While Puma does not use fur, angora, exotic animal skin (which it used to use), or exotic animal hair, it still uses silk, down certified by the Responsible Down Standard, and leather from tanneries certified by the Leather Working Group. It states it uses wool from non-mulesed sheep, but there is no evidence of how it is enforced.
Overall rating: ‘Good’
Puma has improved over the years, and based on our thorough research and methodology, in our most recent review, we bumped the brand’s rating from “It’s a Start” to “Good”, making it the highest rated of the world’s top three sportswear brands.
The brand has taken steps in the right direction by creating a roster of time-bound sustainability goals and reporting on its progress to meet them annually. It has also introduced more lower-impact materials, and says it’s working to find end-of-life solutions for its products, which is an important step to circularity. Puma’s lack of diversity and inclusion policies, and the lack of evidence the brand pays all its workers a living wage remain a concern, but there could be signs of progress: in December 2023 the brand appointed its first human rights officer to oversee risk analysis and compliance in this area, and the company claims to be working on a Human Rights Handbook “for our own entities globally” to be published in 2024, though it’s not clear whether that’ll reach suppliers. We’ll be watching this space closely.
Note that Good On You ratings consider hundreds of issues, and it is not possible to list every relevant issue in a summary of the brand’s performance. For more information, see our How We Rate page and our FAQs.
