Allbirds, a New Zealand and American brand known for its eco-friendly approach to shoes and clothing, unveiled the world’s first carbon-zero shoes at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen last year. Named as “M0.0NSHOT,” this innovative shoe has a very minimalist design. It is a gray woolen sock-style trainer with a bioplastic sole that emits zero emissions throughout its lifespan. The Allbirds team referred to M0.0NSHOT as the culmination of years of work to reduce carbon, which has been the initial goal of the company’s business and products since the beginning.
As the team embarked on conceptualizing a zero-carbon shoe, they decided on regenerative wool as the material to proceed. Collaborating with a farm in New Zealand that operates at net zero carbon emissions and boasts the production of superfine premium merino wool while actively sequestering more carbon than it releases, they found the key material of the M0.0NSHOT.
In addition to the regenerative wool, the Allbirds team also designed carbon-negative, sugarcane-derived SuperLight Foam, which was also developed by them previously, a midsole that boasts 70% bio-based content; carbon-negative bioplastic eyelets made from microorganisms that convert methane into a polymer that can be molded like plastics, without the corresponding carbon footprint; carbon-efficient packaging made with sugarcane-derived, carbon-negative Green PE; and carbon-conscious transportation featuring biofuel powered ocean shipping and electric trucking from port to warehouse.
Jamie McLellan, design lead on the project said: “We didn’t just make the world’s first net-zero carbon shoe. We also made the second, third, and fourth net-zero carbon shoe, and so on, as we explored different prototypes to create an appropriate visual identity for this milestone,” about their eagerness for sustainable production, and continued: “As we thought about this ‘shoe of the future,’ we were clear that M0.0NSHOT couldn’t look like something from the past. We’ve not just reimagined the science of a sustainable shoe, we’ve reimagined the design, too.”
M0.0NSHOT is planned to be available in spring 2024.
