How much CO2 does a pair of running shoes weigh? I built this carbon footprint calculator to answer that in a few clicks, from what you know about your shoe: its weight, whether it has a carbon plate, and where it was made. The calculation uses the data from my guide to the carbon footprint of shoes and the latest measurements published by the industry.
Simple mode gives an order of magnitude from five answers. Expert mode is for when you know what your shoe is made of.
1. Your shoe
| Upper | ||
| Midsole | ||
| Outsole | ||
| Plate | ||
| TPU overlays |
2. Where it comes from, where you buy it
3. How long you keep it
How the calculation works
The calculator follows the pair from raw material extraction to end of life, in six items.
- Materials. Each material has its carbon weight per kilo (polyester, EVA, PEBA, rubber, carbon composite), plus production offcuts. In simple mode, the split between upper and soles is estimated from the weight.
- Manufacturing. The assembly energy measured in 2025 in 33 Asian factories, 3.32 kWh per pair, multiplied by the emissions of electricity in the country of manufacture.
- Box. 178 g of cardboard.
- Transport. Distances are calculated between the country of manufacture and the place of purchase, by sea route then by truck. In simple mode, 0.6% of pairs travel by air.
- Retail. Storage and the shop, or order preparation and delivery if you buy online: 0.26 to 0.47 kg depending on the channel, based on the French agency ADEME’s e-commerce model (2023). Transport from the factory is already counted above.
- Shopping trip. In expert mode, you can add the car trip to fetch your pair, there and back, counted in full for the pair. With a petrol car and a shop 10 km away, it weighs more than manufacturing.
- End of life. In the bin, the pair is incinerated or landfilled depending on the country. At a Refashion collection point, most of it is reused or recycled.
Things to keep in mind
This gives an order of magnitude; a full life cycle assessment goes much further. Several steps lack public data: foaming the soles, curing the rubber, adhesives. They are left out, which pulls the result down. For some recent materials such as PEBA, no independent value exists: I use the value of the chemically closest material.
Figures published by brands and studies cannot always be compared, because scope and method vary. The markers on the scale help you place your result; they do not rank brands.
What about a 0 kg pair?
No setting of the calculator goes down to zero, and that is normal: producing materials, running the factory and shipping the pair all emit CO2. Shoes sold as “carbon neutral” actually displayed a balance, after deducting carbon credits bought by the brand. Since 27 September 2026, this claim is banned on products in Europe (Directive 2024/825).
The only “0.0 kg” without offsetting I know of, Allbirds’ M0.0NSHOT, deducts the carbon stored by the farm that produces its wool, with a calculation the brand admits falls outside ISO 14067. I go into more detail in the guide to the carbon footprint of a shoe.
Main sources
- Footwear Innovation Foundation, Manufacturing Emissions Report 2025: energy of assembly factories
- Cheah et al., MIT: reference life cycle assessment and production offcuts
- ADEME, Base Carbone: plastics, transport, packaging and end of life
- ADEME, e-commerce (2023), via Impact CO2: in-store and online retail, car trips
- Ember 2025, via Our World in Data: electricity by country
- Braskem, Carbonfact and Wang et al., Green Chemistry 2025: EVA, TPU and carbon fibre
- Cascale 2026: energy of material suppliers
- Refashion, 2024 indicators: what happens to collected shoes
Newer data, a mistake, a shoe whose exact composition you know? Tell me in the comments and I will update the calculator.