Adidas and Decathlon have decided to jointly organize and finance a program intended to promote sustainability and women’s sports in France at the same time. In a first step, Decathlon has started offering customers at its 330 stores in France to drop off 25,000 used sports shoes by any brand, except for cleats, between Jan. 24 and Feb. 25. The used shoes will be recycled to be given a second life and to help implement a new project.
As part of this project, called “Collectives,” the EVA soles of the shoes will be recycled to produce the floor covering for a new public multi-sports ground where women who cannot afford to do it will be able to practice dance, fitness and other sports activities. The materials will also be used to develop a new process to obtain 100 percent recycled materials without using any chemical agents.
The sports complex will be tentatively established in the summer at an unnamed partner city. Cléopâtre Darleux, an Olympic champion who is the goalkeeper of the French handball team, will act as an ambassador for the project. Adidas and Decathlon will use the space to organize some common events before legating the sports ground to the city and the local community.
The initiative stems from the fact that only 15 percent of the users of sports facilities in the Paris region are women, as most of those complexes are geared for male-dominated team sports such as football and basketball.
Adidas has been active in the field of inclusivity in France by financing Paul Pogba’s “Playground of Possibilities” at Roissy-en-Brie and the “Impossible is nothing” multi-sports ground in Nanterre. Both locations are just outside Paris. With its mission of making sports accessible to all, Decathlon has been supplying gear and equipment to many schools and communities in France as well as in other countries.
