Ban ‘sustainability’, says footwear start-up
01/06/2018
It will now go ahead and make the shoes, which use recycled rubber in the sole and high-quality chrome-free leather in uppers that offer the added benefit of biodegrading quickly in landfill. It is sourcing the leather, all of the other materials and components and the finished shoes from a variety of partners in Portugal.
Two Degrees has set itself up to be an “environmentally progressive” company. It has pledged to work with conservation group World Land Trust to help protect endangered habitats around the globe, promising to protect 1,000 square-feet of land for every pair of boat shoes that customers pre-order as part of a programme called Feet For Feet.
The crowdfunding campaign continues on the Kickstarter until June 29, although the UK-based brand is looking beyond that and has said its aim is to protect 25 million square-feet of vulnerable land, in places such as Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina, by 2020. This means founders, Luke Gibson and Plum Turner, are confident of selling 25,000 pairs by then.
Even the box that Two Degrees shoes come in is “environmentally progressive”; the brand has called it “the world’s first plantable shoe-box”.
In spite of all this, Two Degrees has said it would like to ban the word ‘sustainability’ because it fears the term is now so over-used it means very little.
“Transparency is the key to this,” Mr Gibson told footwearbiz. “Fashion companies often say they are sustainable, but they don’t explain how they are sustainable. Sometimes they just use the term to make the consumer feel good. But it’s the same for everyone: the more you sell, the more you will deplete resources. We know that we will consume more resources as we make more shoes, but we have analysed our product lifecycle from start to finish and we will work to be as low-waste as possible and to get better at what we’re not doing well.”
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