Real Live: My little fight for black shoes
This is Alicia, 48 years old, a golfer with two children. She is interested in sustainability and tries to live it. But real life sometimes looks different from what advisors and experts convey. So she writes her diary of a sustainable golfer.
It is cold. There is snow and my golf club posts a picture of the cross-country ski trail, which leads wonderfully through the white idyll. The buckles on my right skating boot are broken. No cross-country skiing today. But while we’re on the subject of shoes: I’m toying with the idea of buying black golf shoes to go with black outfits. I love golf shoes. And I like shoes in matching colours. Yes, I have accumulated a few golf shoes over the years, from light blue to bright red.
My better self tells me that wearing instead of buying new is the motto, that no one needs seven pairs of golf shoes or more and that absolutely no one will notice if I wear white shoes with black pants and a red jumper.
But I do.
By the way, there are no truly sustainable golf shoes. Not because glued soles and the mixture of materials make the good pieces non-recyclable. According to a calculation by the Swiss management consultancy Quantis, a typical pair of sneakers has a carbon footprint of 13.6 CO2 kilogram equivalents. Let’s just say: PU and EVA in the midsoles (both non-biodegradable), transportation probably from China or somewhere else far away.
To make a long story short: Ten minutes of background research turns the black golf shoe into a highly questionable commodity. Ten minutes of further background research reveals that there are indeed manufacturers of sustainable sports shoes, which are undoubtedly rather small brands. For golf shoes, however, the situation is poor. I struggle. The online consumer advice center writes in a general article that I should question and reduce my own consumption. Unfortunately, they don’t comment on the question of colour coordination of clothes in correlation to the necessity of reduction. But they win with her argument. Sounds plausible.
I click the selection of black shoes off the screen (I know, online shopping, miserable). It’s winter and when the golf course opens again in two weeks instead of the ski slope, it will be slushy. Too muddy for new shoes. So I don’t buy them.
Not now…but the spring will be long, and it will be a spring of temptations, full of discount sales of reduced (also black) models from the previous year. However, this only improves their price, not their carbon footprint and not their recycling. What a pity…
