We’re all familiar with big brands making efforts to lower their carbon footprints, but what we aren’t used to is 2 competing brands in the same retail space, joining forces for the sake of environmental causes.
Adidas and Allbirds have put their egos aside to come together to share resources, technologies and material innovations to create a lower-emissions performance running shoe, called the FUTURECRAFT.FOOTPRINT. This attractive, all-white running shoe boasts a carbon footprint of just 2.94kg CO2e and is created with 63% less emissions than the typical sneaker. Designed and tested over a period of 12 months, adidas and Allbirds managed to create a shoe that not only looks fantastic but performs well too.
The minimalistic shoe is based on adidas’ popular Lightstrike midsole, but reimagined with Allbirds’ sugarcane-based SweetFoam sole, which is known to be a low carbon natural sourced material. The upper material is crafted from 70% recycled polyester and 30% natural Tencel, which is a material derived from wood pulp, resulting in a smooth-to-the-touch upper that offers stability and support at performance running shoe levels. The use of these materials resulted in a shoe with a carbon-emissions rating that was impressively low, and will hopefully offer inspiration to other fashion brands to consider finding the right type of partner to create more eco-conscious fashionwear.
The FUTURECRAFT.FOOTPRINT will be launched in May with a raffle of 100 pairs to adidas Creators Club members and will follow with a limited edition release of 10,000 pairs this Fall/Winter. A wider release will follow in Spring 2022.
To learn more about adidas’ environmental approach, click here.
To learn more about Allbirds’ mission for sustainability, click here.