Puma
| Category | Score | % | Callout |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carbon & Emissions | 18 / 20 | 90% | ★ Standout |
| Nature, Biodiversity & Materials | 16 / 20 | 80% | ★ Standout |
| People & Supply Chain | 14 / 20 | 70% | — |
| Business Ethos & Governance | 3 / 15 | 20% | ⚠ Gap |
| Transparency & Accountability | 4 / 10 | 40% | — |
| Footwear | 9 / 15 | 60% | — |
What Puma does well
Puma's climate accounting is close to best-in-class: its Scope 1 and 2 data2 is independently assured, and the brand is already running ahead of its own SBTi-approved1 2030 target, having cut emissions from its own operations by 89% against a 90% goal five years early. Materials sourcing carries real certification depth too - 99.5% of cotton certified or recycled, 99.3% of leather from Leather Working Group7 gold-rated tanneries, and a kangaroo-leather10 phase-out dating back to 2023.
Supply chain transparency is genuine rather than aspirational: named factories published on Open Supply Hub4, and living-wage gap data benchmarked against the Global Living Wage Coalition6 across 55 core factories. That same due-diligence process is what surfaced a 2024 Taiwan recruitment-fee finding, reported by the labour-rights research organisation Transparentem, affecting six of Puma's factories - a credible, confirmed problem under active multi-year remediation, and one Puma hasn't tried to hide.
Where the gaps are
An unresolved and unexplained question about subsidiaries in known tax-haven jurisdictions, flagged by Ethical Consumer and contested by Puma's own public statements, remains an openness gap the company hasn't yet closed.
Verdict: A genuinely strong climate and materials performer let down by an unaddressed tax-structure question - a good choice for a runner prioritising emissions and sourcing evidence over governance certainty.
See how Puma compares. This profile is one of several assessments in our Sustainable Running Shoes Buying Guide, or browse the full Brand Directory to search and filter across every brand we've assessed.