Allbirds teases the world's first zero carbon shoe

Sustainable footwear and apparel brand Allbirds has "completely reimagined" the way it makes product, creating the world’s first net zero carbon shoe, the M0.0NSHOT, with 0.0 kg CO2e versus an industry average of 14 kg CO2e.

Mimicking Neil Armstrong's iconic line, Allbirds described the new footwear as "one small footprint for a shoe, but could be one giant leap for the shoe industry".

The product will be launched in June when Allbirds unveils the shoe for the first time at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen. The business confirmed it will also open-sourcing the toolkit that took M0.0NSHOT to zero, inviting others to follow in its footsteps.

Tim Brown, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Allbirds, commented: “Creating a net zero carbon shoe that is commercially viable and scalable is the culmination of our entire back-catalog of work. M0.0NSHOT isn’t a silver bullet for the climate crisis — it’s a proof-point that, when we take sustainability seriously, and are laser focused on carbon reduction, we can make incredible breakthroughs.”

M0.0NSHOT is the culmination of years of work and Allbirds’s focus on systematically reducing carbon in its business and products since its founding. In 2018, Allbirds created SweetFoam, its first carbon negative material, which informed the new foam used in M0.0NSHOT. In 2019, the business became the first fashion brand to label products with carbon footprints.

Most recently, the brand announced a partnership with Adidas to collaborate on what was (at that point in time) the lowest carbon shoe in the world: the Adizero x Allbirds, which had 2.94kg CO2e.

The new shoe was made possible by using:

• Carbon-negative regenerative merino wool upper: Grown on Lake Hawea Station (LHS) in New Zealand.
• Carbon-negative sugarcane-based foam midsole: Newly-developed SuperLight Foam, which boasts 80% bio content.
• Carbon-negative bioplastic eyelets: An innovative new process that uses microorganisms to converts sheep methane into a form of polymer that can be moulded like other plastics.
• The most carbon efficient packaging Allbirds has ever had: With reduced space and weight
  required to transport — made with sugarcane-derived, carbon negative Green PE.
• A considered transportation plan with biofuel powered ocean shipping and electric trucking from port to warehouse.

Concept art for Allbirds M0.0NSHOT.

In partnership with Lake Hawea Station and The New Zealand Merino Company, Allbirds is pioneering a new method of quantifying a product’s carbon footprint that accounts for materials and processes that capture carbon, as well as those that emit, to provide a more accurate picture of a product’s climate impact.

The new method of quantifying takes into consideration that whilst some elements of a shoe’s creation may emit carbon, other areas capture it. In this instance, this then brings the final M0.0NSHOT product to net zero.

Hana Kajimura, Head of Sustainability at Allbirds, added: “We believe this will revolutionise the path to net zero, and act as rocket-fuel for the entire industry. We could spend decades debating the finer points of carbon sequestration, or we can innovate today with a common sense approach. It’s about progress, not perfection. The scientists have shown us what’s possible - now it’s time for the fashion industry to carry the open-sourced learnings from M0.0NSHOT forward.”

Listen to TheIndustry.fashion's podcast with Hana Kajimura, Head of Sustainability at Allbirds.

Earlier this month, Allbirds revealed that full year 2022 net revenue increased 7% to £246.3 million ($297.8 million) compared to 2021, despite a drop in Q4 revenues and an increase in losses.