Hush Puppies

Is Hush Puppies a good shoe, trainer and boot choice for ethical shoppers?

Our independent team of researchers have assessed Hush Puppies across 15 criteria, which ascertain this brand’s business activity and ethical (or unethical) practices. Unfortunately, Hush Puppies does not yet reach The Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Benchmark and therefore cannot be counted as a good, ethical brand for consumers conscious about the Environment, Animals and People.

When was Hush Puppies founded?

Hush Puppies was founded in 1958 by Wolverine, who wanted to develop a casual and soft shoe, using pig skin. Though hugely popular in the late 1950s, Hush Puppies were on the decline until the 1990s, when they became fashionable amongst alternative and edgy trendsetters.

But is Hush Puppies a sustainable brand? And why does this brand not reach our Ethical Benchmark?

One of the criteria that The Good Shopping Guide assesses is a brand or company’s Environmental Report. Whilst there is a Global Impact Report 2021 from Wolverine World Wide that focuses on many brands and what they’re doing to become more sustainable. But for such a sizable corporation, this report is insufficient and lacking in information and detail.

The Good Shopping Guide was pleased to see that Wolverine World Wide does have a Code of Conduct, allowing consumers and consumer information guides to hold brands to account for their labour practices.

However, in an assessment by the Fashion Transparency Index, brands owned by Wolverine World Wide received a score of 11%, indicating that while some attempts are made to control and enhance its supply chains, there is little publicly available supply chain information. The highest score was 73%, and the average was 23%.