Yonex debuts partly recycled sneakers at badminton World Championships
29/08/2023 21:00
By Richa Naidu
LONDON, Aug 29 (Reuters) - As the world's best badminton
players travel home after the World Championships in Denmark,
the sport's leading manufacturer Yonex 7906.T told Reuters
some of them were fighting it out for the first time in sneakers
made partly from recycled materials.
Sports equipment makers like Yonex have seen increasing
demand from fans and shareholders alike to invest in sustainable
sourcing and ethical production for their products, particularly
clothes and shoes.
From Nike's NKE.N Flyleather products - made by
binding at least 50% recycled leather fibres with synthetic
fibres using a water-powered process - to Adidas ADSGn.DE
saying 96% of the polyester it uses is recycled, sporting goods
makers have in the past decade raced to make sneakers and
apparel more sustainable.
In addition to appeasing environmentally conscious shoppers,
the companies argue that switching to recycled materials helps
reduce waste and their reliance on finite resources.
Yonex - which makes the official tournament shuttlecocks
used in all major Badminton World Federation (BWF) events, as
well as the Olympic Games - sponsored apparel and equipment for
dozens of players at the world championships, including Tokyo
2020 Olympic gold medalists Chen Yu Fei from China and Denmark's
Viktor Axelsen.
Yonex said both players had taken to the court for the first
time wearing its POWER CUSHION 65 Z C-90 sneakers, which use
recycled polyester in about 90% of the upper area's material.
The company said it offered the shoes to the athletes and
recommended they wear them.
BLENDING MATERIALS
"The functionality of the new shoes is the same as the
previous ones made without the sustainable materials,"
Shinichiro Chiba, head of Yonex's environmental
enhancement department, told Reuters in an interview. "We
believe they are not feeling any discomfort wearing the new
sustainable shoes."
While developing the products, Yonex thought about how to
blend materials in order to overcome the challenge of the
physical properties of sustainable materials generally being
different to traditional materials.
Chiba said it is difficult to switch all the raw materials
in the shoes at the moment so the company is continuing
technical development. He added that sustainable materials
currently cost more to use because suppliers mass-produce
traditional materials.
Taiwan's Victor, a rival to Yonex in badminton kit, lags
Yonex in dressing its professional players in sustainably made
products, but says on its website it makes some textiles from
100% recycled PET bottles.
Yonex said it uses sustainable materials in 83% of its
apparel products, such as organic cotton or recycled fibers. Its
aim is to increase this to 100%.
In China, the company is trialing recycling old tennis and
badminton racket strings to make polyester used in apparel for
players, Chiba added.
(Reporting by Richa Naidu; Editing by David Holmes)
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