Dear Izzy, thanks for your comment and sorry about my slow reply. Yes, I did look into the production ethics of Vans. You can find information on their sustainability and responsibility in production here: http://sustainability.vfc.com/ . Large manufacturers and any companies using plastics and synthetics can do better, but as I tried to allude to in my post it still seems that durable and functional athletic shoes are not available from small scale ethical companies. If you know of one I would be happy to learn about them. Thank you for reading the blog and asking good questions. xo, Danielle