Is Puma ethical?
Our research highlights several ethical issues with Puma, including a former boycott call over its ties to abuses in Palestine, its inadequate animal welfare policies, and its likely use of tax avoidance strategies.
Below we outline some of these issues. To see the full detailed stories, and Puma’s overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.
Does Puma support Israel?
Since 2018, Puma has faced a boycott call for its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association, which includes teams in illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. The campaign was led by Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), a Palestinian-led movement.
In December 2023, two months into Israel’s ongoing military siege against Gaza, Puma announced that it would not renew its sponsorship of the team. The brand told Reuters that the decision did not relate to the boycott campaign or Israel’s attacks on Palestine.
However, BDS welcomed the decision, stating: “This boycott win is a bittersweet victory as Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues. But it gives us hope and determination to hold all genocide enablers and apartheid supporters accountable until all Palestinians can live in freedom, justice and equality.”
Read more about the successful boycott campaign against Puma.
People
Puma has made some positive steps when it comes to workers’ rights in its supply chain. It has a supplier code of conduct, outlining many key requirements, including no use of child labour and freedom to join unions or organise.
The company publishes some but not all of its immediate suppliers. It has also published the names of some material and component manufacturers. This transparency is vital because it allows brands to be held to account for issues in its supply chain by workers, unions and civil society organisations.
However, it has also faced criticism over abuses in supplier factories. In February 2023, an article on the CamboJa News website stated that a manufacturer making shoes for Puma and other brands fired workers who formed a union. The article criticised Puma for continuing to source from the brands for months after workers’ rights organisations had alerted it “to the alleged retaliation against the union founders”.
Puma was said to be involved in ongoing mediation and to have helped reinstate 11 but not all of the fired workers. A spokesperson for the brand said that it did not tolerate discrimination against union members.
“We expect no interference from factory staff throughout the process of forming a new trade union,” he told CamboJA. “We expect that all the necessary actions are taken, so no trade union members/leaders face any retaliation, intimidation, harassment, repression in any way from any factory staff.”
Environment and climate
Among high-street clothing and sports brands, Puma also performs reasonably well when it comes to the climate.
The company outlines actions it’s taking to cut emissions, such as working with suppliers on relevant training, switching to electric vehicles for several European headquarters, and using heat-pumps at its own sites.
Puma also reports on its emissions, including those in its supply chain – by far the largest source. However, it did not appear to have a target in line with international climate goals. For its supply chain, its target is ‘intensity based’ rather than absolute – looking at the amount of emissions per dollar in sales, rather than overall volumes. This approach allows companies to continue increasing emissions if their sales grow, and is therefore considered inadequate.
Animals
Unfortunately, Puma does much worse when it comes to animal welfare and animal rights, scoring very poorly in Ethical Consumer’s rating.
The company was found to sell products containing wool, leather and down. It had some policies requiring higher standards, for example stating: “PUMA is not using animal fiber from animals reared in cages for their hair, such as angora wool and other rabbit hair.” It only used down certified to higher welfare standards, and had a target for more responsibly sourced wool for 2025.
However, its policy on leather – a key material for the company – was not considered adequate.
Politics and finances
The brand scores poorly when it comes to financial ethics.
Puma states that it “does not use so-called “tax havens” to avoid taxes and shift profits to these jurisdictions." However, it owns a number of subsidiaries in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and the Netherlands, which do not appear to be serving the local population. The brand does not seem to have provided an explanation for these subsidiaries, or evidence that they are not being used for tax purposes.
In 2022, the CEO of Puma, Bjorn Gulden, was paid 6,382,000 euros - equivalent to approximately £5,450,000. Ethical Consumer considered this to be excessive.
The text above was written in November 2024, and most research was conducted in February 2024.