Allbirds and Adidas Make Planet-First Running Shoe

“Competition between running shoe brands is never-ending. Successful products don’t just boost profit margins, they help win medals, too,” tech reviewer Kieran Alger reports for Wired. “This new, shared – and frankly formidable – opponent has led two rivals, sports giant adidas and footwear disruptor Allbirds, to form an unlikely alliance and shoot for an unprecedented shared goal: to create the world’s lowest carbon footprint performance running shoe.”

“The Futurecraft.Footprint is a running shoe built to perform just like any other, but with a cradle-to-grave carbon footprint unlike anything that’s gone before – less than 3kg per pair. That’s roughly the equivalent of seven miles driven in the average car.

“When you consider that the average pair of running shoes costs as much as four times that – anywhere between 12.5 and 13.6kg of carbon dioxide – it’s an impressive achievement,” Alger writes.

“In essence, the collaboration creates a catalytic mix: adidas’s vast experience of creating performance running shoes and mass production, combined with Allbirds much deeper knowledge of complex carbon footprint and Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and the use of natural materials. Not to mention its certified B Corp status adding some environmental credibility to the mix.”

Allbirds was co-founded in 2015 by New Zealander Tim Brown and American Joey Zwillinger.

Original article by Kieran Alger, Wired, May 12, 2021.