OUR MANIFEST

At Norm, we make sneakers, not compromises.

Recycle, reduce, reuse. Yes, you’ve heard that before. And we don’t want you to believe it because we’ve put it into nice words. We want you to believe it based on the facts.

Our sneakers are made of 90% recycled materials. That’s not a 100%. Not yet. But we’re working on it. 1% at a time, never skipping stages.

We don’t know about politics. But we do know about sneakers. So that’s where we took our first step toward better—but not the last. Looking for ways to do things differently in an industry that’s consumed by fast fashion, we’ve learned a lot about shoe-making, and a lot about the gap between making a product a little greener and being outright radical. To other companies out there who prefer the latter, we share our knowledge, open-source style.

Sure, you could say we’re just engineers with a thing for sneakers. Or dreamers with a penchant for design. One way or another: we’re persistent. We won’t stop at better shoes, we want to be the most sustainable shoe in the world.

We’re setting the new norm.

➔ Learn about our engagements

Our Story

Over 23 billion pairs of shoes are produced every year, and each one accounts for 32 kg of CO2. That’s the equivalent of a 900 km flight. 

So here’s us, three friends with a thing for sneakers. Being in the shoe industry for a decade, we know the numbers. We know the problem. And we want no part in it. So we set out to produce a shoe that wouldn’t harm the environment. One that looks sleek, too. Time after time, we were told it couldn’t be done. 

Turns out we can—if only we change the norms.

  • Nicolas

    Every team needs an artist. Ours is Nicolas, a shoe designer with a degree from fancy La Cambre design school in Brussels. He honed his technical skills with big brands, but today he’s the one pushing our lean but mean team to achieve the targets ahead.

  • Antoine

    Antoine is a mechanical engineer who worked in aerospace for years. Nobody ever really understood how he ended up in shoes—but he gets things done around here. He’s our Swiss army knife, fixing a door in the morning and drafting a business plan in the afternoon.