The topic of the thesis was to find out how fashion footwear design can be accomplished in a sustainable manner. The goal was to find out the main futures in approaches of planning and designing sustainable design and on the basis of them, identify case studies in the field. On the basis on the survey, assumptions were carried out about what sustainable fash-ion footwear is now and possibly in the future. The topic selection was affected by the author´s realization to how unethical the fashion industry can be. After realizing this, the author wanted to find out the possibilities in responsible fashion footwear design. In addition, the thesis discussed the reasons to design sustainably and processed a footwear design pro-cess which was guided by sustainability.

The background material for the thesis was collected from literary sources, and by observation and interviews. With the help of interviews, to-date data was collected on approaches and activities in responsible fashion footwear design. Interviews were done among three shoe design companies, as well as one textiles company. In addition to the interviews, data acquisition used written sources to gain knowledge about and ac-tions in sustainability. Causes of the fashion industry´s unsustainability and how it can be improved, were also studied from written sources. To support the text, footage was collected from the Internet as well as from literature.

The main result of the work was a summary of approaches of how to de-sign sustainable fashion footwear now and possibly in the future. The re-port work is an ideal guide to beginners and more advanced design stu-dents, who want to build a better understanding in sustainable design. The end result was an approach to sustainable fashion footwear design and assumptions about the industry´s future.