Driving innovation in footwear: Cortina’s sustainability strategy

Cortina, a global leader in footwear and apparel and owner of the brands Safety Jogger and Patrick, partnered with Sustenuto to develop a sustainability strategy to integrate sustainability into its business practices. Based on a materiality assessment and intense collaboration with leadership, the 4-C strategy of Cortina was developed:

• Care (focusing the employees and corporate philanthropy)

• eCodesign (integrate sustainability into the designprocesses)

• Social Compliance (ensuring a responsible supply chain)

• Climate (reducing the carbon footprint throughout the value chain)

Cortina also appointed Sustenuto as its interim sustainability manager to coordinate the strategy implementation and achieve EcoVadis certfication.

This case study outlines Cortina’s journey and the outcomes of its strategic sustainability initiatives.

From strategic planning to day-to-day Integration: how Cortina embeds sustainability into design processes and supply chains for long-term environmental impact

Introduction

Cortina, a family-owned business with a history dating back to 1950, has always considered the long-term perspective in decision-making. In light of societal pressure regarding sustainability increasing and the fast-fashion industry coming under scrutiny, Cortina sought to reduce the impact of its activities in support of the increasing demand for sustainable practices.

With support from Sustenuto, Cortina developed a sustainability strategy focused on employee well-being, reducing carbon emissions, ensuring ethical sourcing, and integrating sustainability into product design. The collaboration spanned several months, with Sustenuto providing strategic guidance and operational support.

The challenge

As a global player in footwear and apparel, Cortina wanted to evolve towards a substantiated model for more sustainable practices. Although the company had already worked on this in the past, it needed a clear, strategic approach to sustainability. Specific challenges included integrating sustainability into the fast-paced operational environment with extensive seasonal collections in which Cortina operates, with established processes requiring change management in a very price-competitive market.

This required an approach that seamlessly integrates into Cortina’s existing design and procurement processes that would allow designers to evaluate sustainability impacts during the product development process. Ensuring that sustainability metrics were easily accessible for decision-making was crucial to making sustainability a core part of the business.

Our approach

Sustenuto’s approach began with a scoping and benchmarking study to map the sustainability topics relevant to Cortina’s value chain and assess industry standards. This laid the groundwork for the sustainability strategy, which identified key focus areas such as carbon reduction, ethical sourcing, and integrating sustainability metrics into the product design process.

Throughout the project, Sustenuto adopted a hands-on role in supporting Cortina’s team, providing interim sustainability management to ensure the strategy was implemented across daily operations. We developed automated tools for real-time sustainability scoring in the design process, empowering designers with data to make informed decisions. We also worked on tracking both leading (design-based sustainability performance) and lagging KPIs (incorporating individual product sales and suppliers) .

The collaboration involved a systematic presence of Sustenuto on site,  interacting with Cortina’s leadership, design teams, and logistics to ensure smooth implementation..

The results

Cortina published its sustainability strategy with clear and concise mid- and long-term targets across their 4 C’s and successfully achieved EcoVadis certification, highlighting its commitment to sustainability and gaining recognition from stakeholders.

We put sustainability at the core of their decision-making, integrating sustainability into product design and their supply chain, with key teams at Cortina embracing the tools and processes that made sustainability a part of their daily work.

By embedding sustainability at the core of its operations, Cortina has positioned itself for future growth in a market where sustainability is becoming a key differentiator.

Key Takeaways:

• Sustainability integrated into product design: Real-time metrics for sustainability assessment.

• Achieved EcoVadis certification: Recognition for comprehensive sustainability efforts.

• Collaboration spanned strategy development to hands-on support: A multi-phase approach.