Sokito, widely regarded as the most sustainably minded footwear manufacturer in its category, has released a new iteration of its Scudetta — a boot built around a single, striking proposition: that high performance and ecological responsibility do not have to pull in opposite directions. The new edition, dubbed the BioTouch Emerald, introduces a reformulated upper material and a nature-inspired colourway that together mark a meaningful evolution from the original design. More than half of the boot's construction, by material composition, is recycled.
The BioTech Upper Changes How the Boot Feels
The central innovation in this release is the shift to what Sokito calls BioTech material for the upper. Where previous performance footwear has often forced a trade-off between structural responsiveness and tactile comfort, the BioTech construction aims to eliminate that compromise. The material is described as having a butter-soft feel — notably different from the stiffer synthetic overlays common in high-performance footwear — while retaining the low weight that the Scudetta was originally designed around.
Equally significant is the one-piece upper construction. By removing internal seams, the boot avoids the pressure points that stitched or bonded multi-panel designs routinely create. This matters more than it might initially appear. Pressure points are among the most common causes of discomfort and blister formation in close-fitting footwear, and eliminating them through construction — rather than cushioning — is a more precise engineering solution. The result is a fit that conforms consistently to the foot without relying on break-in time or padding.
Sustainability Runs Through Every Layer
Sokito's environmental credentials are embedded in the materials, not just the marketing. The Scudetta BioTouch Emerald is composed of more than 50% recycled content. The laces are made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, and the outsole — the component that typically presents the greatest material challenge in sustainable footwear manufacturing — is 89% derived from castor beans, a renewable and biodegradable crop-based source.
Castor bean-derived materials have attracted growing interest in the footwear and automotive industries as a bio-based alternative to petroleum-derived polymers. The plant requires relatively little water compared with many industrial crops and can be grown on marginal land, making it a more defensible choice than many other bio-sourced substitutes. For outsole applications specifically, the material offers a workable balance of durability, flexibility, and reduced carbon intensity in production.
Sokito founder Jake Hardy was direct about the significance of the release: "The BioTouch Emerald represents a breakthrough for Sokito. The next step in design, performance and sustainability." That framing — positioning comfort and performance as additions to, rather than replacements for, sustainability — reflects a maturation in how the brand is communicating its identity. The first generation of the Scudetta established the ecological baseline. This version argues that the baseline was only the starting point.
A Colourway With a Clear Point of View
The iridescent emerald finish is not incidental. Sokito drew on the visual language of chameleons, amphibians, and the particular quality of light that passes through natural emeralds — surfaces that shift colour with angle and intensity. Iridescence in nature is produced not through pigment but through microscopic surface structures that diffract light, a phenomenon found across species from beetles to hummingbirds. Referencing that quality in the boot's finish aligns the aesthetic directly with the brand's environmental positioning, without reducing it to the simple colour-coding of green as a sustainability shorthand.
The choice also speaks to a broader shift in how sustainability-focused brands are approaching design. For years, the visual language of ecological responsibility leaned heavily on neutral tones, muted palettes, and an implicit modesty about aesthetic ambition. That convention is eroding. A growing number of manufacturers are demonstrating that ethical production and considered design are not competing priorities — and that a product built with environmental integrity can also be visually arresting. The BioTouch Emerald is a deliberate argument in that direction.
