‘Kangaroos Are Not Shoes’ Campaign Reaches Adidas’s Backyard in Germany

Inspired by protests in the United States and Australia, animal rights activists in Germany have joined the global campaign to compel sportswear giant Adidas, which is based in Germany, to stop making football cleats out of kangaroo skin. In the past two months, activists with Their Skin Hamburg have conducted six protests in Hamburg and Frankfurt.

“Adidas claims to source its materials in a humane manner, but the unnecessarily killing, traumatizing and bludgeoning defenseless kangaroos is cowardly, cruel and unbecoming of a brand that has the financial means to switch to synthetic, cruelty-free materials,” said Pantalaimon Sander of Their Skin Hamburg. “We will continue to protest Adidas in its own backyard until the company announces an end to its use of kangaroo skin.”

Animal rights activists, including Australian Member of Parliament Emma Hurst and American actor James Cromwell, protest at Adidas over the company’s refusal to stop killing kangaroos to make football cleats.

In early 2022, the Center for a Humane Economy launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign to help put a stop to the world’s largest commercial slaughter of land-based wildlife. Since then, the organization has worked with state and federal lawmakers in the United States to introduced bills that would ban the sale of kangaroo parts.

In 2022, the Center for a Humane Economy launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes Campaign to curb the slaughter of wild kangaroos in Australia.

As part of the campaign, the Center for a Humane Economy has called on the largest football cleat manufacturers to switch from “k-leather” to cruelty-free materials. With Nike, Puma and New Balance announcing a kangaroo-free policies in 2023, Adidas becomes the last multinational sportswear company to continue using kangaroo skin.

Despite the growth of the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign, Adidas has made no indication that it plans to stop using kangaroo skin. In a recent letter to the Center for a Humane Economy, Adidas’s Senior Vice President of Sustainability Policy & Engagement, Frank Henke, defended the company’s decision, claiming that kangaroo slaughter is humane: “Adidas is opposed to kangaroos being killed in an inhumane or cruel manner…. Licensed operators must comply with a stringent code of practice which controls how they operate.”

Frank Henke, the Senior Vice President of Sustainability Policy & Engagement at Adidas, claims that his company “is opposed to kangaroos being killed in an inhumane or cruel manner,” yet Adidas continues to sell kangaroo skin football cleats despite the well documented proof that the kangaroo hunt is inhumane.

In response, the Center for a Humane Economy’s President, Wayne Pacelle, argued that the hunt is inherently inhumane: “The shoots result in the orphaning and killing of 300,000 – 500,000 joeys a year. In whose estimation could orphaning—resulting in either starvation or bludgeoning of the newborns—be considered humane? Assurances from the industry and the Australian government, relating to ‘humane’ and ‘sustainable’ practices associated with the hunt, are without any merit when one considers the all-consuming fear and suffering endured by the juveniles — first watching their mothers die, and then expiring in short order without maternal care. To simply say that the kill is regulated is an act of faith, not a matter of animal welfare science. Nor does it meet any kind of common-sense understanding of what’s happening in the field in Australia.”

Despite the well documented cruelty associated with the commercial kangaroo hunt, Adidas claims to be opposed to kangaroos being killed in an inhumane or cruel manner.

As the Center for a Humane Economy attempts to reason with Adidas in the boardroom, grassroots organizers have pledged to continue confronting the company at its retail stores in the United States, Europe and Australia. Animal rights activists in the U.S. are also planning additional protests at Dick’s Sporting Goods, the country’s largest retail distributor of kangaroo skin cleats. That effort, dubbed #DontBeADicks, began with a disruption inside of a Dick’s store in New York City.