Japanese footwear giants react after adidas stops sourcing kangaroo parts
OSAKA, Japan – Mizuno Corporation, a Japan-based leader in performance athletic footwear sold across the globe, will phase out the use of kangaroo leather in its shoes, according to reporting from Financial Times. The move comes two weeks after adidas announced an exit from the trade and just a week after ASICS did the same. The rapid-fire changes in corporate sourcing policies came after pressure applied by the Center for a Humane Economy and other animal welfare advocates.
The Center for a Humane Economy, with its sister organizations Animal Wellness Action and the Animal Wellness Foundation, launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign in 2020. Puma, Nike, and New Balance announced the phase-in of no-kangaroo-sourcing policies in 2023, while Sokito, a U.K.-based brand, cleansed its entire supply chain of kangaroo leather in 2024. Nike and Puma ended all trade in kangaroo skins at the end of 2023, while New Balance pledged to close out kangaroo-based shoe offerings by the end of 2024, except for a one-year extension of sales of the wildlife-based shoes in Japan.
Jennifer Skiff, the director of international programs for the Center for a Humane Economy, confirmed she’d been pressing Mizuno president Akito Mizuno to act with deliberate speed in the wake of the announcements from adidas and ASICS. Mizuno, however, has not yet announced a timeline, and the Center for a Humane Economy has asked for an immediate end to buying new skins and to phase out manufacturing of any shoes made from kangaroos by the end of 2025.
“This appears to be a tremendous victory for animals and for the global movement toward ethical business practices,” said Skiff. “Mizuno and its major competitors could no longer deny our stark analysis that their sourcing practices, tied to the inhumane commercial slaughter of native wildlife, were out of alignment with their animal welfare and sustainability policies.”
In January 2025, a review of listings by the Center for a Humane Economy, largely grounded on offerings from Soccer.com, found that Mizuno was offering 28 models of kangaroo-leather shoes, making it the top user of kangaroo skin in the global athletic footwear market. In contrast, other major brands have been winding down their use of kangaroo parts.
For example, adidas, whose leaders informed Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle at its Annual General Meeting in Germany on May 15, 2025, that it would cease using kangaroo leather, apparently had only one remaining shoe model with kangaroo uppers—the Copa Mundial. Days later, ASICS told the Center for a Humane Economy in an email that it would end its relationship with kangaroo leather in 2025, citing the importance it placed on “ethical sourcing” while committing to replace its few remaining kangaroo-sourced models.
“There’s been a corporate exodus from the skin trade for kangaroos in recent weeks,” noted Pacelle. “Major athletic companies have been funding, through their purchases of skins, the largest massacre of native wildlife in the world, and it was time for all of them to clean up this moral mess.”
In early April, the Center for a Humane Economy launched a letter-writing campaign among Japanese consumers directed at Mizuno’s leadership, alongside an online educational initiative. Skiff said she had meetings this week with activists as they prepared to demonstrate outside Mizuno retail stores in Europe, Japan, and the United States.
But now, the company appears poised to follow the industry-wide ethical shift. Alyssa Wormwald is president of the Victorian Kangaroo Alliance, an advocacy group in Australia that has been exposing the trade. “We commend Mizuno for cutting ties with the vile kangaroo wildlife trade, and congratulate the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign on its latest success. Without this campaign, shoemakers would not have seen past the spin aggressively pushed by the profiteering kangaroo industry and Australian government.”
Skiff noted the pulse of action from athletic shoe industry leaders, led by Puma in 2023, and now this second wave of reform led by adidas in 2025. “With this latest policy change, the top seven companies in the global athletic shoe business have made pledges to kick the habit of using the skins of the iconic Australian marsupials after the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign was launched in 2020,” she said.
The Center for a Humane Economy noted the incredible boost the campaign received from Donny Moss and Their Turn, SPCA International, the Animal Justice Party in Australia, Victorian Kangaroo Alliance, Nature Knowledge Channel, Animals Australia, and dozens of other leading animal welfare groups.
Learn more and take action at KangaroosAreNotShoes.org.
Photo by Jennifer Skiff, director of international programs for the Center for a Humane Economy.