The world’s first net zero carbon shoe

Called M0.0.nshot, the newly announced shoe by sustainable shoe manufacturer Allbirds is said to be the world’s first net zero carbon shoe, without relying on a single carbon offset.

Allbird’s new show is the next step in their aim to become as sustainable as possible. In 2018, they developed a foam called SweetFoam (read more about it here), which is carbon negative and informed the foam for the new M0.0.nshot. In 2020 they became the first brand to label all products with carbon footprints, and in collaboration with Adidas, they created a shoe with a carbon footprint of 2.94kg CO2e (compared to 14 kg CO2e for an average sneaker), which was the shoe with the lowest carbon footprint, until now.

The new shoe is made from wool sourced from a New Zealand regenerative wool programme. This farm produces superfine merino wool with net zero carbon. Allbirds calculated the specific farm-level footprint, which was translated into the carbon footprint of the material for the product. The carbon footprint of M0.0NSHOT accounts for on-farm carbon sequestration, in addition to emissions, which is a deviation from standard industry practice. Allbirds believes this wool carbon intensity value captures a more comprehensive model of the total emissions fluxes happening on-farm.

In addition to the wool, the shoe uses carbon-negative sugarcane derived ‘SuperLight Foam’ for the midsole, which is made of 70% biobased content. The eyelets are made from carbon-negative bioplastic, made by microorganisms that convert methane into a polymer. The packaging is designed to reduce space and weight, and is made of sugarcane-derived, carbon-negative Green PE. Even the transportation is taken into account, which is done by biofuel powered ocean shipping and electric trucking from port to warehouse.

Allbirds is not keeping their secrets to themselves; they created an open-source manual for others in the industry to follow in their footsteps, so to speak.

Photos: Allbirds