Leveraging the power of fashion to be a global force for good.
Read our full sustainability report
The world is counting on companies like ours to support sustainable development in the fashion industry.
While our journey is just beginning, we’ve committed ourselves to incorporating better materials into our products and packaging, reducing and offsetting carbon emissions across our supply chain, and reclaiming used products once they’ve served their purpose.
Our company and our people are one and the same. We consider it our responsibility to create safe and equitable workplaces for each and every person working in our stores, offices and factories, across our entire supply chain.
We think it’s important to engage and invest in the communities where we live and work. Over the last 30 years, we’ve prioritized supporting people in our hometown of Long Island City, contributing to causes that are near and dear to employees, and responding to national and global disasters.
We take a proactive approach to ensuring that our products are safe and accessible and that all people from all walks of life feel welcome in our stores and reflected in our brand imagery.
Cool Planet by Steve Madden shoe boxes are completely recyclable, made from 90% post-consumer waste, and designed thoughtfully with a handle to help reduce the use of shopping bags.
Cool Planet is a sustainable innovation brand within Steve Madden, whose mission is to deliver today’s fashion in a better way. The brand has three core principles that guide its designing and manufacturing processes – use less, reuse more, and invest in environmental protection with every pair purchased.
Learn more about the brand and initiatives here
Amber Hikes, Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at the ACLU, partnered with Steve Madden in November 2020 to completely overhaul the company’s approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programming with two interactive workshops: an Inclusive Leadership seminar for the executive team, and an all-staff training focused on intersectional allyship.
Amber also engaged in a fireside chat with Steve Madden, our CEO, Ed Rosenfeld, and President Amelia Newton Varela, discussing a range of topics from mentorship to privilege.
The company will continue these efforts throughout 2021 and beyond, with the understanding that this important work is ongoing.
In Spring 2020, Steve Madden brand shoe boxes changed to 100% recyclable boxes made of 90% post-consumer waste and 10% virgin pulp farmed from sustainably managed forests.
The shoe box incorporates natural dyes and adhesives exclusively with no chemical finish. The tissue paper is 99% post-consumer waste, 1% virgin pulp, and printed with plant-based ink.
All packaging is certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council, the standard barer of sustainable lumber product sourcing. It is also sourced from tree plantations and not through deforestation.
Our packaging factories actively collect, sort, and return recyclable waste to the appropriate materials vendors. All returned waste is eventually upcycled into new post-consumer waste materials.
Now that the color of our boxes is the same for all women’s, men’s and kids’ shoes, our factories can also do longer runs without stopping the machines, which uses less energy.
In January 2020, Steve Madden launched a partnership with I:CO to reuse or recycle unwanted footwear. Anyone can bring in their unwanted shoes (any brand in clean, dry condition) and place them into our Shoecycle box, staged at select NYC store locations. The shoes are then sent to our partner I:CO, who gives them a new life.
In 2007, we replaced plastic shopping bags with reusable totes at all full priced retail stores.
Since then, these reusable shopping totes have evolved and are being constructed from recycled polyester.
The Sustainable Design Action Group is a collective of designers and product developers that are committed to exploring and implementing more sustainable design practices and environmentally preferred materials into our business.
The group held its first meeting in September of 2020.
The DEI Council is an internal council responsible for establishing, overseeing and implementing the company's DEI strategic plan.
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) play an essential role in advancing inclusive business practices at Steve Madden.
SM Pride, an ERG for LGBTQ+ employees and allies, held its first meeting on Dec 12, 2019.
Black Sole, an ERG for Black employees and allies, held its first meeting on Nov 13, 2020.
In 2019, we conducted an analysis of how Steve Madden stands in the broader community when it comes to providing equal opportunities for minority employees in the workplace and across the supply chain. The firm delivered a strategic plan based on that assessment, which serves as the foundation for our efforts in 2020 and beyond.
In October 2019, Steve Madden began partnering with B.STILL to offer 15-minute guided meditation sessions for employees at its Long Island City headquarters and NYC showrooms.
On June 1, 2020, Steve Madden expressed his solidarity with protestors speaking out against George Floyd's murder and against the underlying systemic racism that plagues our country.
The Company also donated $100,000 to Black Lives Matter on this date and began matching employee donations to civil rights and social justice organizations.
Steve Madden began its partnership with Voto Latino in 2018, when it sponsored Lyft rides for those in need of transportation to the polls. In 2019, Steve pledged to donate $1 million in support of VL’s 2020 voter registration goals. In January 2020, the Company kicked off the $1 million partnership with an in-store voter registration initiative within 81 of its retail locations across the country. In 2021 the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Voto Latino, Maria Teresa Kumar, joined the Steve Madden board of directors and will be a member of the Company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Committee.
From March to June, the Company donated $200k worth of medical supplies, masks, and shields to local hospitals, including Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. The Company also donated at least 50,000 fashion masks to various hospitals, organizations, and homeless shelters throughout Brooklyn and Queens.
In 2020, we partnered with the Fearless Fund to provide 50 Women of Color entrepreneurs free enrollment to their 12-month Get Venture Ready program, designed to acquire training, knowledge, mentorship and skills needed to gain access to capital. Fearless Fund’s mission is to bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders building scalable, growth aggressive companies.
On May 7, 2020, Steve Madden joined Open to All and other global retailers in signing an open letter denouncing the racial disparities and targeting of API people during the COVID crisis.
Read the letter here.
The #CREATEWITHMADDEN mission is to continue to diversify our creator network with influencers, artists and musicians and share our platform to amplify the voices of creative BIPOC.
On October 16, 2019, Steve Madden became a member of the UN Global Compact, joining almost 10,000 other companies who are committed to aligning their strategies with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
September 5, 2019, Steve Madden joined other members of the fashion industry to sign a pledge to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for people—including employees, visitors, customers, vendors and clients—regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, immigration status, religion or disability.
In 2019, the Company partnered with a consulting firm to develop a comprehensive sustainability strategy and roadmap to prepare and publish a GRI sustainability report. The report was published in July 2020 and can be found here.
FABSCRAP is a one-stop textile reuse and recycling resource. They pickup the fabric scraps, then process them by identifying and sorting the materials, with the end goal of either recycling or reusing the materials.
To date, we’ve recycled 1575 lbs. of scraps which have saved an estimated 11.5 tons of CO2 which is the equivalent of planting 173 trees.
With every online Cool Planet purchase, we will be donating a set amount to Global Green, an environmental nonprofit dedicated to helping people, places, and the planet.
With our support, Global Green will create an eight acre Climate Park near the Ojai city hall to serve as an educational center for teaching the community how to live a sustainable lifestyle.
It will educate individuals on how to reduce climate change impacts and live in harmony with the environment.
Ojai will serve as a model for a holistic system that improves the sustainability of the existing landscape and community. This will include biodiversity, watershed management, renewable energy, educational opportunities for local schools, on-site leadership training and eco-visitation opportunities.
Did you know that polyester is made from plastic? And creating new polyester means extracting fossil fuels from the ground and turning it into plastic, which will then be part of our environment for hundred of years.
That’s why we created the Valeryy and Electrik. The fly knit upper material is made with post-consumer plastic bottles, which gives a new life to single-use plastics and helps us limit the use of virgin plastics in our supply chain.
Carbonfund.org is a non-profit organization that makes it easy and affordable for any individual or business to reduce and offset their climate impact.
Our commitment is to offset all CO2 emissions associated with shipping orders from our warehouses to your doorstep.
For every order processed through our website, we’ll work with Carbonfund.org to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and reforestation projects that reduce the same amount of CO2 from the environment as was emitted in the process of shipping the order.
The footwear industry produces millions of tons of waste. Pre-consumer waste is generated in the manufacturing process in the form of material scraps and factory defects. And post-consumer waste is often incinerated or sent to landfills once consumers dispose of their pre-loved shoes.
When we created Cool Planet by Steve Madden, we wanted to give a second life to footwear waste. Every Cool Planet shoe is made with recycled soles from preloved shoes or from materials leftover from the footwear industry.
By reusing these valuable materials, we’re conserving nonrenewable resources and reducing pollution caused by landfilling and incineration.
This Pride Month, join us in supporting the LGBTQ community and the vital work of Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, the Ali Forney Center, and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.
With every Steve Madden purchase, you’ll have the option to add a small donation to that week’s featured non-profit. Steve Madden will match 100% of donations made on SteveMadden.com, so your contribution goes even further.
Add on donations will benefit our non-profit partners on the following days:
About ShoppingGives
ShoppingGives helps us collect and distribute sales-driven
donations to verified and trusted non-profits through our
e-commerce website. 100% of your donation goes to the chosen
non-profit. ShoppingGives does not receive a percentage of any
donations.
About Callen-Lorde
Callen-Lorde Community Health Center provides sensitive,
quality health care and related services targeted to New
York’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities —
in all their diversity — regardless of ability to pay. To
further this mission, Callen-Lorde promotes health education
and wellness, and advocates for LGBTQ health issues.
About the Marsha P. Johnson Institute
The Marsha P. Johnson Institute protects and defends the human
rights of Black transgender people. They do this by
organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to
heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting our
collective power.
About the Ali Forney Center
The Ali Forney Center’s mission is to protect LGBTQ youths
from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools
needed to live independently.
Steve Madden employees visited New Design High School to donate sewing machines, sewing kits and fabric scraps leftover from our factory in Long Island City, Queens.
New Design High School is an innovative design-focused public high school located in the Seward Park Educational Campus in the Lower EAsi Side of Manhattan. The instructors guide students to find their own unique talent and purpose by providing life coaching, peep-to-peer life circles, and social and emotional curriculum.
Investing in the development in NYC’s young creative talent is vitally important to the future of fashion. We look forward to a long-term partnership with New Design High School and their students.
In observations of Juneteenth, we invited Dr. Efua Obeng, an associate professor at Howard University, to host an internal conversation about how companies can advance racial equity.
The session was a part of a larger effort to create space for open and honest dialogue about how our workplace culture can become increasingly more welcoming and equitable.
In celebration of Disability Pride Month we’re supporting outstanding organizations that are creating a more inclusive and equitable society for people with disabilities.
To support the disability community, Steve Madden will donate to our non-profit partners and match 100% of donations made on SteveMadden.com.
Runway or Dreams works toward a future of inclusion, acceptance and opportunity in the fashion industry for people with disabilities.
Open Style Lab is dedicated to creating functional, wearable solutions for people of all abilities without compromising style.
Miss Amazing is a self-esteem movement led for and by girls and women with disabilities.
Changing the Face of Beauty is committed to equal representation of people with disabilities in advertising and media worldwide.
Last Thursday, Steve Madden employees across the country joined Finn Brigham (he/him) from Callen-Lorde for a learning session about transgender and non-binary culture.
In this session, Finn spoke with employees about the building blocks of identity and about the differences between sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex assigned at birth.
Employees walked away with an up-to-date vocabulary relating to these topics and with concrete strategies for creating a welcoming environment for our transgender and non-binary colleagues and clients.
Callen-Lorde is a leading non-profit organization in LGBTQ healthcare. To learn more and to get involved in their work, visit callen-lorde.org.
From September 15th to October 15th, join us in giving to organizations benefitting the Hispanic and Latinx communities by adding a donation to your purchases made through SteveMadden.com, and we’ll match each gift dollar for dollar.
Votolatino is uniting and empowering the Latinx community by helping voters get registered.
The Hispanic Federation empowers, strengthens, and supports Hispanic communities, families and institutions through work in education, health, immigration, civic engagement, economic empowerment, and the environment.
Boriken Neighborhood Health Center provides bilingual medical, dental, health education, and social services to the residents of East Harlem without regard to the patient’s ability to pay.
