Where have your shoes been?

Think about what causes climate change. The immediate visual vocabulary that springs to mind is of power station chimneys, jumbo jets criss-crossing the sky, maybe colossal container ships circling the globe. You're probably not thinking of a glossy trainer advert.

Every year, tropical deforestation causes more greenhouse gas emissions than the global transport sector – more than the entire USA, more than China. Cattle ranching in Brazil is the biggest driver of deforestation in the world.

Our Slaughtering the Amazon report, published last week, demonstrates the direct link between shoes on sale in the UK and the carbon being needlessly belched into an already-overloaded atmosphere.

The report has already made a lot of noise in a marketplace where branding and image is everything. Shoe companies like Adidas, Reebok, Nike, Timberland and even Clarks are sourcing leather products from the companies responsible for driving deforestation.

You can help us lever pressure on ranching companies by telling big brand shoe companies, that if they want to retain the good name of their brands they should take a stand and stop doing business with the worst Brazilian suppliers immediately.

Slaughtering the Amazon: read the report »

(The ad was put together by Daniel Bird, who also did our Onslaughter viral from last year. The music is 'Ever Falling' from electro-genius Amon Tobin. Some cows were harmed in the making of the film.)