Greenwashing or Genuinely Sustainable?

7 Questions to Ask Before Buying Shoes and What Seyes Does Differently

Walk into any shoe store today and you will be surrounded by words like eco, green, conscious, and sustainable. They appear on hangtags, landing pages, and Instagram captions with equal confidence. But behind many of these claims sits very little substance. A recycled shoelace does not make a shoe sustainable. A cotton bag does not offset a supply chain that spans four continents. And a vague promise about the planet does not replace a transparent production process.

For women in Switzerland who care about where their money goes and what their purchases leave behind, this gap between marketing language and real impact is not just frustrating. It is a genuine obstacle to making informed choices. According to research cited by Greenpeace Switzerland, fast fashion brands routinely make circularity promises that have no grounding in measurable action. The same pattern repeats across footwear.

This article gives you seven concrete, practical questions you can apply to any shoe brand before you buy. At the end of each question, we apply it directly to Seyes, the Swiss-designed modular sandal brand, so you can see what genuine transparency actually looks like in practice.

Question 1: Where Exactly Is This Shoe Made?

The phrase Made in [Country] carries real weight when it comes to sustainability. Production in Europe means shorter transport routes, stricter labor laws, tighter environmental regulations, and lower carbon emissions from shipping. Production in Southeast Asia or South America, while not automatically problematic, typically involves longer supply chains with less visibility and significantly higher transport-related emissions.

When a brand says it is designed in one country but manufactured in another, ask which country sets the actual production standards. Design location is largely irrelevant to environmental impact. Manufacturing location is everything.

What Seyes does: Seyes sandals are designed in Switzerland and manufactured in Spain. Spain has a centuries-long tradition of artisanal shoemaking, strict EU labor standards, and significantly lower transport emissions to Swiss and European customers compared to Asian production. Every pair is crafted by hand in a Spanish workshop, not in an anonymous mass-production facility. This is not a marketing claim. It is a verifiable production fact.

Question 2: What Does Vegan Actually Mean for This Product?

The word vegan in footwear means no animal-derived materials. No leather. No suede from animal hides. No wool. No glues derived from animal products. This is a meaningful ethical distinction. But vegan alone does not equal sustainable. A shoe made entirely from virgin polyester is technically vegan. It is also made from petroleum, sheds microplastics with every wash, and will take hundreds of years to decompose.

The right follow-up question is: what are the vegan materials actually made from, and are they free from harmful chemicals? Look for references to REACH certification, which is the European standard for chemical safety in materials. Brands that use REACH-certified vegan materials are committing to a measurable safety standard, not just a label.

What Seyes does: Seyes uses vegan materials that are described as breathable, anti-allergenic, and skin-friendly across all product lines including the Roma, Ibiza, and Chiang Mai sandals. The materials are selected to avoid chromium tanning and harmful dye processes. The uppers are designed to be interchangeable, which means the material investment per look is dramatically lower than buying a new pair of shoes for each occasion. Less material consumed per style is itself a sustainability metric that most brands never discuss.

Question 3: Is the Product Designed to Last or Designed to Be Replaced?

The global footwear industry produces approximately 20 billion pairs of shoes per year. A significant share of those end up in landfill after one or two seasons, not because the entire shoe is worn out, but because one component fails. A sole wears through. A strap breaks. A trend changes. The entire product gets discarded.

Ask any brand: can I repair this shoe? Can I replace individual parts? Is there a warranty? Brands that design for longevity will have clear answers. Brands that design for repeat purchase will not.

As Sustainable Jungle notes in its review of the best sustainable shoe brands, the most credible players in this space offer repair programs, component replacement, and take-back schemes. Thousand Fell charges a recycling deposit and refunds it when you return worn shoes. Allbirds runs a resale program. These are structural commitments, not marketing copy.

What Seyes does: The entire Seyes system is built around this question. The sole and the upper are separate components. When your upper shows wear, you replace only the upper, not the whole shoe. When you want a new look, you buy a new upper for CHF 30 to 50, not a new pair at CHF 120 or more. The sole, which is the most resource-intensive component, lasts for years. Seyes also offers a 2-year warranty on every pair. This is not a coincidence. It is a design philosophy that treats longevity as a core product feature.

Question 4: Does the Brand Have Verifiable Third-Party Recognition?

Self-declared sustainability is the easiest form of greenwashing to spot once you know what to look for. Any brand can write the word eco-friendly on its website. What matters is whether an independent organization has assessed and verified those claims.

In the footwear space, meaningful third-party signals include B Corp certification, REACH certification for materials, GOTS certification for organic textiles, and membership in recognized industry coalitions. These are not free to obtain. They require audits, documentation, and ongoing compliance. A brand that holds them has invested real resources in accountability.

Among the brands reviewed by Sustainable Jungle, Allbirds, VEJA, Baabuk, Cariuma, and Thousand Fell all hold B Corp certification. Bhava uses REACH-certified Italian vegan leather. These certifications are publicly searchable at bcorporation.net.

What Seyes does: Seyes holds official recognition from the Swiss Innovation program and is a verified member of the Suisse Startup Association. These are not self-issued labels. They are accreditations awarded by recognized Swiss institutions that evaluate innovation, business integrity, and product quality. For Swiss consumers, this institutional backing carries specific credibility. It signals that Seyes has been assessed by organizations with no commercial interest in flattering the brand.

Questions 5 to 7: Carbon, Circularity, and True Cost Per Wear

Question 5: Is Carbon Reduction Real or Just Offset?

Carbon offsetting has become the sustainability equivalent of paying someone else to go to the gym for you. It does not reduce emissions. It compensates for them, sometimes through projects of questionable permanence. The more credible question is: what has this brand done to reduce emissions at the source?

Source-level reduction includes manufacturing in regions with shorter supply chains, using renewable energy in production, reducing packaging weight, and designing products that require fewer replacement purchases over time. VEJA, for example, publishes the carbon footprint per model on each product page. That level of transparency is rare and worth recognizing.

What Seyes does: By manufacturing in Spain rather than Asia, Seyes eliminates the long-haul shipping emissions that account for a substantial share of most footwear brands' carbon output. The modular design further reduces emissions per use because one sole serves multiple looks across multiple seasons, meaning fewer total units need to be produced, shipped, and eventually discarded.

Question 6: What Happens to This Shoe at the End of Its Life?

A truly circular product has a plan for what happens when it can no longer be used. This might be a take-back program, a recycling partnership, or a design that allows components to be separated and processed individually. Shoes that combine multiple material types bonded together are notoriously difficult to recycle. Shoes designed with separable components are inherently more recyclable.

What Seyes does: Because the sole and upper are separate components, each can be processed independently at end of life. There is no need to separate glued-together layers of mixed materials. The modular architecture is not just a style feature. It is a structural advantage for circularity.

Question 7: What Is the Real Cost Per Wear?

Sustainability and financial intelligence often point in the same direction. A shoe that costs CHF 120 and lasts one season has a higher cost per wear than a sole that costs CHF 90 and lasts three years, with uppers added at CHF 35 to 50 each. As detailed in the Seyes cost comparison analysis, the modular system can save a Swiss woman up to CHF 1,470 over three years compared to conventional sandal purchasing patterns. That is not a small number. It is a structural financial argument for buying better and buying less.

The Greenwashing Checklist: A Quick Reference Table

Use this table the next time you are evaluating a shoe brand. The more honest answers a brand can give, the more credible its sustainability claims are.

Why Seyes Passes the Test and What That Means for You

Running Seyes through all seven questions produces a consistent picture. The brand does not rely on vague language or self-issued labels. It answers the hard questions with structural product decisions: a modular system that reduces waste by design, European manufacturing that shortens supply chains, vegan materials that are skin-safe and breathable, a 2-year warranty that signals confidence in durability, and institutional accreditation from Swiss organizations that have no incentive to flatter a startup.

None of this means Seyes is perfect or that it claims to be. Genuine sustainability is a direction, not a destination. But the difference between a brand that is moving in that direction and one that is simply using the vocabulary of sustainability is visible when you ask the right questions.

The Roma sandal is the clearest expression of this philosophy. One sole. Interchangeable uppers in over a dozen colors and finishes. A system that lets you build a complete shoe wardrobe without building a pile of discarded pairs. Designed in Switzerland. Made in Spain. Backed by a 2-year warranty and a modular architecture that makes both repair and style evolution structurally simple.

For women who want to make conscious purchasing decisions without sacrificing style or versatility, the question is not whether you can afford to buy sustainably. The question is whether you can afford to keep buying the way most of the industry wants you to.

• One sole replaces the need for five separate pairs
• Uppers from CHF 30 to 50 deliver a new look without a new shoe
• Made in Spain with European quality standards and shorter transport routes
• Vegan and breathable materials without harmful chemical processes
• Swiss Innovation recognition and Suisse Startup Association membership
• 2-year warranty as a structural commitment to longevity

Sustainability does not have to mean compromise. With the right system, it means buying smarter, spending less over time, and leaving a lighter footprint without giving up the freedom to express your personal style every single day.