Anti-Kangaroo Leather Activists Disrupt Adidas Launch Party

As part of a global “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” Campaign, animal rights activists in New York City disrupted a launch party hosted by Major League Soccer (MLS) at the Adidas flagship store. During the protest, the activists called on the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, Thomas Rabe, to join Nike, Puma and New Balance in making the switch from “k-leather” to cruelty-free materials.

The Center for a Humane Economy, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, launched the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign in 2021 in an effort to protect kangaroos from the egregious abuses associated with commercial kangaroo skin trade and to curb the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet. In 2023, the Center and its partner organization, Animal Wellness Action, turned their attention to Adidas, the largest of the few remaining companies that produce soccer cleats using kangaroo skin.

In 2021, the Center for a Humane Economy launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign to compel sportswear companies to stop using kangaroo skin in their soccer cleats

In a “Standards on Animal-derived Materials” statement on its website, Adidas claims to source skin from animals who are “free from fear, distress, pain and injury,” and Adidas executives, including the company’s sustainability chief Frank Henke, use that statement to defend the company’s continued support of the commercial kangaroo hunt.

Adidas claims that the animals whose skin they use are “free from physical discomfort, pain and injury”

Representatives from Australia’s Animal Justice Party, which closely monitors the kangaroo hunt, dispute these “false” claims. In a letter to the board chairman Thomas Rabe, Louise Ward, the New South Wales State Director, wrote:

Excerpt from a letter from the Animal Justice Party to Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas

In addition to serving as the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, Thomas Rabe is the CEO of Bertelsmann, a global media empire that owns the publisher Penguin Random House; the music producer BMG; and the RTL Group, an entertainment company with dozens of media outlets. Rabe has not responded to letters in which the Center for a Humane Economy and the Animal Justice Party ask him for a meeting to discuss the use of kangaroo skin and Adidas’s claims made about how it’s sourced.

Animal protection groups are calling on Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, to stop using kangaroo skin. Rabe is the CEO of the global media giant Bertelsmann

The commercial kangaroo skin trade orphans an estimated 300,000 joeys each year. Government code mandates that hunters bludgeon or decapitate the joeys, who cannot survive without their mothers. Those who do escape die of predation, exposure or hunger.

Chasing down and slaughtering wild kangaroos (and their babies) to steal their skin for #adidasfootball cleats is inhumane, yet @adidas Supervisory Board Chair, #bertelsmann CEO @ThomasRabe, refuses to join Nike, Puma and New Balance in switching to #crueltyfree materials. pic.twitter.com/oPdCxDZyBU

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) January 25, 2024

Activist groups in Australia, Europe, Canada and the United States have been protesting Adidas for the past year. Several have decided to escalate the campaign by protest Thomas Rabe at Bertelsmann offices in the U.S. and Germany.

Emma Hurst, a member of Parliament in Australia, addresses activists participating in a #KangaroosAreNotShoes protest at Adidas in Sydney

In February, 2024, TheirTurn launched a campaign calling on Thomas Rabe to make the switch from kangaroo skin to cruelty-free materials. To date, 173 people have sent a total of 2,453 emails to Rabe and his colleagues at Adidas and Bertelsmann.

Petition calling on Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, to replace kangaroo skin with cruelty-free materials