3rd Global Footwear Sustainability Summit 2014 was held successfully

In recent days, 3rd Global Footwear Sustainability Summit 2014 was held successfully in Shanghai. Consumer Testing Technology Co, Ltd(Hereinafter referred to as CTT) attend this meeting as the representative of Third-Party testing institutions. Many manufactures, suppliers and retailers of the world's top shoe brands were invited to attend the meeting and they talked about the industrial hot topics such as the policy environment of shoes industry, testing standards of footwear and so on.

This meeting attached much importance to the current situation of development and the influence on footwear caused by environmental policy, discussing problems such as the change with which the global supply and demand face, the investigation and procurement in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Taiwan and China and other Asian regions, corporate social responsibility, the zero discharge of the harmful chemicals in leather industry, wastewater treatment, the latest testing standards about footwear and so on.

Shoemaking industry is a typical labor-intensive industry. In recent years, the prices of many goods have been rising; national macroeconomic regulation and control policy have been implemented intensively; the concept of environmental protection and green consumption consciousness of consumer have been improved, all of these have bring dramatic changes to the survival and development environment of labor-intensive industries such as shoemaking industry. Chinese shoe industry is facing many new challenges from international and domestic, which are in urgent need to be solved for the development, transformation and upgrading of the whole industry.

There are many different kinds of chemical risks involving in shoes industry. For example, if there are excessive chemical elements existing in leather shoes, they will penetrate to our body through skin. And if the wasted shoes are thrown into the landfill garbage, the environmental toxin will penetrate into soil and groundwater. At the same times, leather industry will bring a large number of wastewater and organic matter. When degrading them, it needs oxygen and will produce salt and other chemicals. Producing leather will also bring solid waste that became the sludge in the sewer. Analysis showed that all shoes have metal with different concentration. Although shoes will not result in an immediate danger to who wear it, they could pose long-term health risks to humans and the environment. Shoes will become waste at the end and the metal including in the shoes will penetrate into the natural environment. For the past few years, the EU has made several warning to the footwear products exporting from China and revised REACH to control it. According to REACH, the limitation on the hexavalent chromium (VI) is within 3 PPM. In order to make Chinese shoes enter the EU markets successfully, the enterprises not only need to focus on the laws and regulations of different countries, but also have to know well about the quality guaranteeing items so to assure the product quality.

As a professional Third-Party testing institution, CTT have rich experience in testing leather and own a professional technical team. CTT can help shoemaking enterprise interpret environmental standards of different countries and control the management of suppliers and testing of raw materials on the source according to the laws and regulations in Europe and America. And it can provide tailor-made comprehensive detection scheme about leather making process for enterprises.