Hail Mary (Jane) and stride towards eco-comfort with hemp shoes.
It’s a blazin’ textile for sustainable style that’s more durable than cotton and more compact in its footprint for water, energy, and pesticides during cultivation.
Hemp is also lightweight, breathable, and comfortable to wear year-round, not to mention its inherent microbial properties. Because, ”I love foot-odor,” said no one ever.
In fact, hemp fabric cultivation was recorded in China as far back as BCE 2800, plus it was used in the Mediterranean and Europe during the Middle Ages. In other words, it’s not a recent budding industry: humans have gone hooray for hemp for millennia.
To find the best hemp shoes for your tootsies and our Mother Earth’s, we exhaled our way through things like materials, manufacturing, sourcing, and general green practices, paying close attention to BIPOC and female owned businesses and those highly rated by us.
In the coming months, we’ll be launching our new Brand Rating System, designed to evaluate brands using a range of comprehensive criteria, such as their climate impact and water use. For a full breakdown of this new system, take a look at our in-depth explainer.
Hemp Footwear That Make Us Feel Extra Happy
For breathable, waterproof hemp shoes that are seriously durable 8000Kicks offers stylish sneakers for work, rest, and play, (trust us we’ve worn ours non-stop for over 2 years) featuring uppers that are a whopping 95% hemp.
We’re obsessed with Astral’s hemp winter boot, which shows that hemp is the perfect all-around all-season material since these shoes keep our feet warm and dry in inclement weather (i.e. Wyoming winter tested).
Index: Hemp Sneakers & Shoes
- 8000kicks Jump to section
- Astral Designs Jump to section
- Rackle Shoes Jump to section
- Vibram Jump to section
- RISORSE FUTURE Jump to section
- Sanuk Jump to section
- Wildling Jump to section
8000kicks
Price Range: $75–$199
Weed’s “sober cousin” hemp has been used since 8000 BC for all kinds of textiles, but it wasn’t until 8000Kicks stepped up that waterproof hemp shoes became popularized. Started by Bernardo and his grandmother, Otilia, the unlikely duo is truly treading in uncharted territory for the future of sustainable fashion.
Made of 95% antimicrobial natural hemp uppers, these organic hemp shoes include sneakers, ankle boots, and slips-ons.
Unlike many sustainable sneakers that still use petroleum midoles, 8000Kicks uses Bloom soles, partially made of harmful invasive algal blooms that would otherwise destroy waterways.
My Personal Review of 8000Kicks’ Explorer V2:
I’ve worn the Explorer V2 Allblack for 3 years now ad naseum. I’ve taken them on 5-mile runs, short hikes, and everyday errands. They’re arguably the most durable pair of shoes sneakers I’ve ever owned. The soles are starting to wear down but the uppers are still completely intact. They’re a bit on the wide side, (I have narrow feet). I’d say a bit larger than true to size. I didn’t think the waterproofing was going to be a feature I’d appreciate but it is actually really helpful, especially in my wet climate, no rain boots needed.
Review by Lyall Mabin, SJ’s Co-founder
Astral Designs
Price Range: $95–$175
Trust nature with Seattle and NC-based Astral, a company pioneering wilderness performance products that include everything from breathable life vests to the stickiest grip rubber soles ever—plus functional performance boots and casual shoes made of hemp.
Astral knows that pirates of bygone days were onto something when they made the rope and sails of their boats from hemp, and the brand uses the material for uppers for a number of their footwear options. The Hemp Loyak shoe or the HaleStorm Boot, for example, both use 77% hemp and 23% recycled polyester.
Further sustainability features include bluesign® certification and carefully selected suppliers and manufacturers aligned with the brand’s values.
My Personal Review of Astral’s HaleStorm Boot:
“These modern duck boots strike a balance of sustainable style and functionality that transition easily from trail to town, with the WeatherGuard on them shielding the bottom of the hemp-upper boot from rain or slush while remaining durable and comfortable from first wear. I’ve only been testing them in rainy weather so far, but I live in Wyoming where winters are HARSH, so I can’t wait to don these in three feet of snow on the ground.”
Review by Amber McDaniel, SJ’s Head of Content
Rackle Shoes
Price Range: $89
Reduce your footprint—literally—with US-based Rackle, who make hemp trainers with soles made from patented foam that accelerates biodegradation and is certified by Intertek Sustainability. Weighing in at just six ounces, these they are as lightweight as they are elegant and eco-friendly.
The 100% hemp one-piece uppers are lined with OCS and GOTS-certified organic cotton, while laces are made from hemp and 100% recycled materials. Insoles also have a proprietary design to encourage all-day comfort and healthy blood flow. To ensure ethical production of all the shoe parts, Rackle’s shoes are made in Vietnam with suppliers that are environmentally responsible and can ensure safe and fair working environments.
Shoes are offered in one unique style, called the Alex, in a variety of different colorways. Each pair features their signature hemp upper and laces, proprietary arch design, and a three-density foam sole treated with organic additives to expedite biodegradability up to 50 times faster. Unbe-weed-able!
Vibram
Price Range: $85–$125
Famously known for their patented rubber outsoles used in many sustainable hiking shoes and climbing shoes, Vibram is an Italian brand that’s become so popular, they now have operations in many major countries.
Vibe with Vibram’s iconic minimalist FiveFingers foot gloves, which also embrace sustainable hemp models. The CVT LB is a light, grippy FiveFinger model with a hemp upper, making it one of the best shoes made from hemp for barefoot fans. If you’re not a five-toe fan, the Vibram One Quarter is the perfect lightweight hemp slip-on shoes alternative. Both shoe options are lightweight and foldable, perfect for tossing in a travel bag and exploring the globe.
Both combine hemp uppers with Vibram’s famous minimalist outsole technology and its manufacturing facilities come with an ISO-9001, 14001, and 45001 stamp of approval, plus REACH Compliance and bluesign® system partner certification to ensure ethical and eco-friendly production. We hope their Ecostep Recycle EVO, a 30% recycled Vibram rubber generated by the production process, soon also makes its way to the soles.
To extend product life cycles—one of the highest tenets of sustainability—Vibram also offers repair shops worldwide. Their Repair If You Care service encourages customers to give shoes a second life by getting them resoled with Vibram.
RISORSE FUTURE
Price Range: $88-$266
Italian vegan footwear brand RISORSE FUTURE merges Italian design with cruelty-free culture and meets our high expectations for sustainability with men’s and women’s hemp sneakers available in a variety of styles. With skate shoes, tennis shoes, ballet flats, boots, and slip- ons available, everything is also dyed with REACH-certified dyes to ensure they weed out the bad chemicals in favor of eco-friendly ones.
RISORISE FUTURE is also Vegan Society certified, all its products are PETA-approved, and it’s received the highest VVV rating from animal right’s group LAV (Lega Anti Vivisezione). Plus, with shoes designed and made in Italy, the localized supply chain reduces their eco-impact.
While Microfiber is used in some models, it’s REACH-certified as free of hazardous substances and the brand prioritizes the use of innovative, vegan materials that respect the environment, which aside from hemp include organic cotton, corn bio leather, and natural latex.
They offer mostly sneakers, but select styles of flats, slip-ons, boots, and even the dressier Deserto chukka boots, all of which have 100% raw hemp uppers, unbleached cotton laces, organic cotton lining, natural rubber, aloe, and activated carbon insoles for total antibacterial comfort, and thermo-rubber soles.
Sanuk
Price Range: $32-$75
Have some fun in Sanuk’s hemp shoes, which fits since “Sanuk” is Thai for the word “fun.” The San Diego-based brand offers a variety of sustainable men’s shoes and women’s shoes, which include hemp sneakers, hemp sandals, and hemp slip-ons, like the award-winning Sidewalk Surfer. With collapsible heels, super comfy hemp cotton blend uppers, cotton lining, and crazy cushiony Soft Top Foam midsoles, “Natural comfort has been legalized in America.”
Some pairs feature a 100% hemp upper while others blend hemp with responsibly sourced cotton, TENCEL, linen, jute, or virgin polyester. Footbeds, midsoles, and outsoles commonly use BLOOM™ foam made with repurposed algae, alongside GRS-certified rPET, recycled or sugar cane EVA foam, and natural rubber.
In 2022, Sanuk hemp footwear used 58,071 lbs of the magical plant, saving over 346,000lbs of CO2 eq. emissions, 1.59 million liters of water, and 1.21 million MJ of energy compared to conventional cotton.
Manufacturing happens in Vietnam and China, where its supply partners are audited against their parent brand Decker’s Ethical Supply Chain Code of Conduct.
Wildling
Price Range: $60–$160
Certified B Corp and Germany-based Wildling was started by Anna and Ran, who wished to see a better shoe—and ecological future—for their children. As a result, they’ve created a shoe as close to being barefoot in nature as possible, with ultrathin-soled hemp shoes that conform to the shape of the foot, handcrafted in Europe with fair working conditions, and with low-impact materials like hemp and recycled rubber.
Slow fashion at its tokin’ finest, every single shoe is one of a kind and entirely handmade in Portugal, featuring an organic cotton and hemp blend upper, with lining made of organic cotton, and the removable insole is made from hemp-flax fleece. The thin sole is made from 33% recycled rubber, 15% recycled cork, and 25% silica.
For adults and kids alike, the brand offers hemp slip-ons, hemp boots, hemp sandals, and two styles of hemp trainers with their signature outer space-like and razor thin soles. You’ll be best buds with their Kune barefoot hemp shoes, a modern all-natural take on summertime canvas tennis shoes of bygone days. Flower to the people.
