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Within the heavily polluting fashion industry, the $50 billion athletic footwear industry is one of the worst offending product categories.
Constructed from a complicated mix of virgin plastics that are almost impossible to separate and recycle, the remnants of most sneakers linger in landfills and spill into oceans.
While several brands have overhauled the fashion sneaker market with sustainable spins (Veja, Yatay and Cariuma are just a few of note), very few have tackled the running shoe market. Early last year, Adidas piloted its fully recyclable running shoe the Adidas Futurecraft.Loop, which for now remains a prototype, and towards the end of last year sustainable sneaker brand Veja released its first running shoe.
Now, San Francisco-based sustainable sneaker label Allbirds comes in hot on the Portuguese brand’s heels as it drops its first foray into the performance shoe category, with the launch of The Dasher.
The brand, launched in 2016, found fame with its super comfortable woollen sneakers loved by tech bros the world over, and opened a store in Covent Garden in 2018.
The Dasher, which comes in four colours of grey, blue, coral and green, is a running shoe constructed entirely from renewable natural materials, including eucalyptus tree fibre, Merino wool and sugarcane. Designed by athletic footwear experts to perform, the Dasher has been biomechanically tested over thousands of miles by over 50 amateur and professional athletes.
Allbirds has a company mission to “tread lightly on the planet”, through natural material innovation and supply chain efficiencies that reduce its carbon footprint, and earlier this month announced it would be labelling all of its products with their carbon footprint.
The Dasher will be the first Allbirds product to display a physical Carbon Count label, which takes into consideration materials, development, manufacturing, and end of life. While, not perfect, the shoe emits 9kg of carbon dioxide per pair, nearly 30 per cent lower than the estimated average sneaker.
The Dasher, £120, Allbirds. Shop it here
