“The sports shoe with the lowest carbon footprint of all time.” The German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas and the American shoe manufacturer Allbirds want to achieve this goal with their cooperation.
Over the past few months they have worked together on the Futurecraft.Footprint - a running shoe with a footprint of just 2.94 kilograms of carbon dioxide per pair and 63 percent fewer emissions during manufacture;
a normal pair of sneakers weighs an average of 12.5 kilograms.
The data from the Futurecraft.Footprint show a clear decrease in harmful emissions.
To date, it is the running shoe with the best carbon footprint.
Aylin Guler
Editor for social media.
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The teams from Adidas and Allbirds worked together digitally from development to execution, across multiple time zones and on two continents.
This was not only due to Corona, but also in terms of a development process with low CO2 emissions, as Hana Kajimura, Head of Sustainability at Allbirds, says.
In less than twelve months, they invented the running shoe, which, despite its carbon dioxide values, should also offer performance and good looks.
The prototype was launched in May in a strictly limited product launch.
In autumn it will be released in a limited edition of 10,000 pieces, and in spring 2022 in a larger edition.
As little scraps of fabric as possible
The shoe combines in-house technologies of the companies that complement each other: the Adidas Lightstrike midsole and the sugar cane-based Allbirds Sweet Foam, a natural alternative. The newly developed upper material consists of 70 percent recycled polyester and 30 percent natural Tencel, a material made of cellulose that offers a soft and light upper material that meets performance requirements and whose production emits less CO2. The individual parts result in as little scraps of fabric as possible in the cut. The Allbirds know-how in the natural materials and the calculation of emissions as well as the Adidas expertise in production have made this shoe work. Each copy bears the numbers "2.94" on the outsole to indicate the footprint.
According to Kimia Yaraghchian, Product Manager at Adidas, the collaboration should also be an invitation to other companies to show that climate neutrality can be achieved. By the way, Yaraghchian reveals that there will be other joint projects with Allbirds. For me as a sneaker fan it is also important that the future of sport and fashion is climate neutral. So far, the shoe industry has had an environmental problem. The cooperation between Adidas and Allbirds is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, more companies will use improved manufacturing methods soon. Less can be more.