Allbirds goes wide with ‘net-zero’ shoe hoping other footwear companies copy it

Allbirds is stocking five stores in Dubai, London, New York, Seoul and Tokyo with a limited, 500-pair run of what it’s calling the first “net zero carbon shoe,” Moonshot — written as M0.0NSHOT Zero in the company’s marketing materials.

The primary material for the all-black sneakers, which debuted in gray as a prototype two years ago, is wool sourced from a New Zealand farm that uses regenerative agricultural techniques such as native plantings, forest regeneration and pasture biodiversity. Those practices are key to the calculations behind Allbirds’ net-zero claim.

While Allbirds is going wider with the shoe starting Feb. 5, executives re-iterated that the success of the shoe’s concept can’t be achieved if only Allbirds does it, so it is pointing to its “recipe” book it has released for other shoe companies, including competitors.

Allbirds was founded in 2016 as a brand dedicated to striking a balance between comfort and a commitment to using natural materials and business practices that have less of an environmental impact than industry norms. The company aims to cut the average footprint of its products in half by the end of 2025. It say it’s about halfway there.

Allbirds is sticking by that mission despite struggles to grow sales since going public in November 2021. Net revenue for the first nine months of 2024 was off 26.5 percent to $133.9 million, which the company attributes to lower unit sales.

This is a “hard moment” for companies dedicated to corporate sustainability, said Allbirds co-founder Tim Brown, who led the Moonshot project as the company’s chief innovation officer, during a Tuesday briefing. “We’re not naive to the backdrop against which this product exists,” he said.

“Since the outset, Allbirds has been clear that consumers do not buy their shoes because they are sustainable,” said Ken Pucker, professor of practice with the Tufts Fletcher School. “Instead, they seek to make the most comfortable, simple and purposeful products that happen to be lower in carbon.”

Creative math

Allbirds publishes a carbon footprint on all of its products, and it still plans to do so despite heightened scrutiny of environmental claims. The carbon accounting methods it uses for Moonshot are unique, and rely heavily on data from its primary supplier in New Zealand.

Lake Hawea Station, where the wool for Moonshot is sourced, calculates the carbon dioxide sequestered by its agricultural practices and shares it with Allbirds for use in its full life-cycle emissions calculations. That accounting is verified by Toitū Envirocare, a New Zealand certification organization.

The value of the reductions Lake Hawea Station claims combined with the emissions from Moonshot’s other main materials — bio-based midsole foam, packaging made from sugar cane, and bioplastics made from captured methane — are plugged into Allbirds’ life-cycle assessment tool. That enables Allbirds to come up with the net-zero figure, without buying carbon credits, which it has done in the past to calculate environmental impact statements. 

The average sneaker has a carbon footprint of 14 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent. Technically speaking, Moonshot has a footprint of slightly more than 1 kg of CO2, after things such as transportation and end of life considerations are factored into the equation.

Don’t expect a best-seller

Marketing that information isn’t likely to help the struggling company, but that commitment reflects the brand’s core values, said Tensie Whelan, founding director of the Center for Sustainable Business at NYU Stern.

“Allbirds could use that language more effectively than their current language,” she said. “Smart companies will continue to promote their sustainability credentials authentically. After all, our research demonstrates that U.S. consumers are paying a 28 percent premium for sustainability-marketed products on average.”

Moonshot is priced at $200 per pair. That’s a premium of $65 to $100 over many of the company’s current best-sellers, but within the wide range of pricetags for sneakers. The wool carries a higher cost than Allbirds’ traditional materials: a tradeoff against its emissions-reduction impact. About 54 percent of global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable options, according to data from market researcher GlobeScan.

Allbirds is studying ways to extend the processes used to create Moonshot to other products in its portfolio, Allbirds Director of Sustainability Aileen Lerch told me. For example, the shoes don’t have laces, which eliminates a component. The Lake Hawea wool will be incorporated into Allbirds’ supply chain, but the supply is limited. 

Another key learning during the process of developing Moonshot was understanding where in the design process it’s possible for sustainability teams to influence design decisions that can affect emissions, she said. “Fundamentally, it helped me understand the process and touchpoints where it’s appropriate for me to deliver information,” she said. “I equate it to costing because engineers understand that.”

Please copy what we’re doing

Allbirds published the methodology it used to make Moonshot, so other shoe-makers can copy its ideas and processes.

The innovations Allbirds is showcasing are work zero if it’s the only company following these practices, said Brown in the Moonshot recipe book.

“We really want you to take our work and apply it to your own products,” he said. ”You can take individual chapters or the whole thing, whatever works.”

Brown acknowledges that Allbirds’ accounting methods aren’t perfect. The practices it uses for analyzing Moonshot aren’t industry standard; they aren’t fully aligned with the ISO 14067 standard for calculating emissions related to specific products.

Still, Allbirds is to be commended for sharing this information, according to consumer products experts. “I think it’s great,” Whelan said. “Good for authenticity and transparency and stimulating action by other companies.”

While Allbirds has partnered with Adidas on past work to reduce the emissions from sneakers — which resulted in the Adizero — few other footwear companies devote “as much energy to the carbon content of their shoes,” Pucker said. “Unfortunately, when it comes to decarbonization, Allbirds remains an outlier.”

For more on Allbirds’ strategy, catch the Climate Pioneers episode with Aileen Lerch, the company’s director of sustainability.

[Join over 1,500 professionals transforming how we make, sell, and circulate products at Circularity, April 29-May 1, Denver.]