Who doesn't want to help the planet by using things that are recycled or recyclable or biobased materials or other ways of being environmentally savvy? Well, we're gonna take a look into that in a little rant on today's episode of the movement movement the podcast where people And want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy healthy strong body starting feet first Those things are your foundation. We're gonna break down the propaganda the mythology and sometimes the outright lies That's what this episode's about about what it takes to you know Run or walk or hike or play or do yoga across But anything that those things you like to do and do that enjoyably and effectively and efficiently and did I say enjoy I know I did it's a trick question because look if you're not having fun Do something different till you are because you won't keep it up if you're not having a good time I'm Stephen Sashan co-founder and CEO zero shoes calm I'm not wearing a zero shoes t-shirt. I'm just wearing our logo with cool colored thing in it instead and We call this a movement movement podcast because we're creating a movement that involves you doesn't cost anything really easy about natural movement Letting your feet and the rest of your body do what bodies are made to do and so you can go to www.join the movement movement calm you don't have to do anything to join this is where we have all of our previous episodes all the Ways you can find this podcast and our related ways of interacting So, you know YouTube Facebook etc etc And then the movement part that involves you is simple Just share like give us a thumbs up or review hit the bell on YouTube if you're watching this on YouTube So you hear about future episodes in short if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe So we're gonna get into a topic that is near and dear to my heart and it's about what we can do to help the planet I mean after all after all our company is called feel the world and that's not just because of the experience you get of connecting to the Ground when you're wearing a pair of zero shoes, but also because we're aware of the environmental impact of what we're doing in footwear Is a tricky one now?
This is stuff I've been talking about for a long time but happily or maybe not so happily a week or so ago A couple weeks ago the Harvard Business Review did a great article about what I'm gonna talk about and I'm gonna Sonopsize and refer to that in fact. I'm gonna put a link to it in the show notes or in description wherever you're looking at this If you can't find it drop me an email We'll send you the link but our business review there No sloshes when it comes to intellectualism and research and so in fact I want to start this by reading just a summary of their article So pardon me while I look down here to read a few industries tell their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry But the sad truth is that despite high profile attempts at innovation It's failed to reduce its planetary impact in the last 25 years Most items are still produced using non-bioded well petroleum-based synthetics and end up in a landfill That's the important part by the way So what can be done new ESG environmental sustainable several strategies such as the use of bio-based materials recycling and rent the runway concepts have failed Instead we must stop thinking about sustainability as existing on a spectrum less sustainable is not sustainable and governments need to step into Force companies to pay for their negative impact on the planet the idea of win-win and market-based solutions has failed even in one of the most Progressive quote progressive industries So a bit of a slap in the face and I'm gonna talk to you about how we think about this and how we are addressing this But first I want to hit you with the key points first things first There's a concept called greenwashing Which is using all this environmentally friendly language to make people feel like the company is doing a good thing So the people buying those products feel good about what they're doing feel like they're saving the world It's a little virtue signaling when they're walking around with something where there's big logos and whatnot indicating You know the the carbon friendliness of whatever they've bought and a lot of companies are misrepresenting this So for example, I wish I remember the name of the company So if someone knows I'd be happy to hear it There was a company that was touting that they were making their products out of recycled water bottles What they didn't say is they were making water bottles to then recycle the water bottles So that's like the most egregious example of greenwashing that I've ever found But there are a lot of them and if you look up greenwashing just look for definition You'll hear it's basically using the idea of greenness of eco-friendliness for marketing purposes in a way that's disingenuous That's the gist of it So I have notes that I've got to look at for this So pardon me for looking down and back But let's talk about one of the first ones that really years ago this became somewhat popular and aggravated the crap out of me The concept of recycleable Let's just start with a simple thing It's ridiculous the whole idea of something recyclable There was actually companies that used to sell bags that you put their products in to then bring somewhere or send somewhere to have the products recycle Two problems one no one or use them. I mean simply it was a hassle No one ever bothered Two where people now do bother so there's some stores that will say hey our stuff is recyclable So bring things back put them in this bin and we'll recycle them makes people feel great The problem is a only 10% of that material actually gets recycled The rest of it goes into a landfill and out of that 10% is recycled for many of the components It costs more from a carbon perspective to recycle it then to start from scratch So recyclable in general complete hand waving greenwashing nonsense. All right.
Let's move on to the other issues The biggest one is simply this many of the processes for recycling stuff use more carbon or energy than they save Sometimes because of just the sheer cost the mechanical cost or the the technological cost of you know heating something up to turn something solid into a gas For example, sometimes the transportation costs So for people who are talking about pulling things out of the ocean the amount of carbon that it takes the amount of energy that it takes I think I'm gonna use energy instead of carbon for the rest of this conversation when I can the amount of energy it takes to Go out into the ocean grab the stuff from the ocean bring it back put it on a truck take it to somewhere process it Take it somewhere else and get it used is often not creating a energetic benefit I should have said carbon benefit there, but you get the point so sometimes a lot of times these things are using more energy than they are saving Now in the heart of history article I mentioned using petroleum based products and that can be problematic and I'm gonna address that in a bit too Let me move on because these new recycled materials or new materials are new and the infrastructure is not built out the way it has for the Existing technology is including petroleum based products and because they're not used widely not where we see a cost savings from the economy of scale The problem is a lot of the products made with these materials cost more and so what does that mean? It means only rich people tend to buy this stuff Which is again a form of not greenwashing but kind of virtue signaling people feel better But it's a tiny tiny tiny percentage of people who are actually using and able to afford these products In fact, I was at a trade show a few years ago on a panel discussion about environmental sustainability And there was two shoe companies talking about how they had you know They were changing the world because their products were made with I don't even remember was recycled or recyclable But suffice it to say they were talking about how they were changing the world and I rude pointer out of truth But I sometimes tend to be in fact at that event I decided that I wasn't gonna try and you know make friends I was just gonna tell the truth no matter what and this is the first place I did that on a stage in front of hundreds of people I said how many shoes are you guys gonna sell in the course of a year? And it was maybe a hundred thousand. It's like there's like four hundred thousand tons of stuff dumped in the ocean every year I think by the United States alone.
So the number of shoes you're making is not making a dent in a dent in a dent So you know stop patting yourself on the back for doing basically nothing I'm not saying don't do it, but you don't you know overhype it so more expensive Yeah, then a lot of these materials not as durable So it's even if they are energy efficient if they use less energy to make with whatever the new material or new technology is Then using the existing methodology that's fine But if the product doesn't last as long you're going through more of it And if it's a product where it's not 100% recycled or genuinely recyclable Then you're actually putting more stuff in the landfill because of the turnover and this is something that the harbor business Or you talk about as well some fast-fashion stores they pride itself on new new new new new so people are buying more and more and more And again most of the stuff that they recycled doesn't end up recycled and something the landfill or the ocean are worse So there's that and wait what does my note here? Oh, okay Oh, one of the other problems for companies like ours is that you can't even track everything and for consumers too You can't it's literally not possible to track in most situations the entire history of the supply chain to find out exactly what's going on From an energy or carbon perspective so the transparency doesn't exist right now Which means it makes it easier for companies to just say things to make customers feel better that aren't necessarily true Especially given the reasons that I already stated and transparency is a really big issue I'm not gonna mention this company by name I've done it before but I'm gonna be a nice guy and not mention them by name though I will say it's a company it's a footwear brand and they're currently being sued for being misleading I think I'm being nice when I say misleading about their environmental impact they use materials a lot Let's say a bunch of the materials in shoes they make are naturally sourced But then they were flying those materials from one side of the globe to the other side of the globe to have the materials turned into a Component for the shoe and then flying to the other side of the world to have those materials added to another component to make a shoe And then using the most energy wasting box in the history of footwear to then ship that to the other side of the world again For then for distribution that part is not the egregious part The although it is the egregious part is that when they were printing and publishing their sustainability story They explicitly said they were leaving transportation out of the equation what? Transportation seems to be the majority of the equation in that case in fact I watched something We're gonna see this just the other day was probably on YouTube a guy in California He's originally from Netherlands who is just doing everything he can think of to reduce his carbon footprint By the way carbon footprint is a term that was coined by the energy industry to make people feel like they were more responsible Than the big companies the energy producing companies the controlling producing companies for what's happening on the planet So they were trying to shift the burden and shift the mentality from what they're doing on a giant scale to what you're doing any Tiny tiny tiny tiny personal scale anyway, so it solar panels on the roof So he wasn't put I think he was putting energy back into the grid maybe he was riding his bike everywhere Instead of driving a car they were eating nothing but plant-based foods because they use less energy than me and when their carbon footprint was Analyzed it wasn't better. It wasn't carbon negative.
It wasn't energy negative He wasn't using less energy than he was consuming Why is once a here? He and his wife took an airplane trip back to Netherlands and that one airplane trip alone use more carbon for them than everything They were saving by doing everything else, which is crazy So this transparency thing is really an issue now what to do about it and what are we doing about it? Well, the biggest thing we're doing about it is trying to keep things out of landfills by keeping them on your feet by using materials that are more durable Our shoes are soles have a 5,000 mile soul warranty versus the modern athletic shoe Which they say you need to replace every two to five hundred miles even less for this super maximless shoes with you know Tons and tons of foam built into them So a we're trying to keep things on your feet longer by keeping them on your feet longer by having more durable materials keeping them out of landfills Secondly, we haven't been lying about what we're doing or trying to exaggerate what we're doing We have our one shoe our nit Phoenix casual flat for women That's made with some materials that have what's the word? I'm looking for reused.
I'm gonna do this coffee grinds It's a cool thing It definitely reduces the amount of polyester or whatever the other synthetic material we're using is but look on the first one Say not by a ton. We want to let you know what we're doing But it's not like we're saving the world by doing this we're doing whatever we can whenever we can this is legitimate as we can track And when I say that we've been approached by a number of companies who want us to use their world saving materials And when if it seems like there's some hand waving and you know Don't look behind the curtain kind of conversation going on if they don't let us see the entire chain of where things are going and all their analysis Then we won't do it. That's thing one thing number two though It's something that's coming out in I don't know when you're watching this so coming out roughly around March 1st Is our first product where we're using almost entirely recycled or biodegradable materials And we are really really happy that we're doing this in part because we want to see how it works So that we can start using more of these materials in the rest of our products And we're gonna have more and more data about the recycled components and about the biodegradable miss of our component So that when something does end up in a landfill it doesn't last forever in a landfill So fundamentally the biggest thing we're trying to do keep things on your feet and be as transparent as we can While not trying to make this some you know pat on the back virtue signaling thing about look how great we are We're gonna do the best we can the comment from the Harvard Business Review thing of less sustainable is not sustainable Agreed and then what that means is in general the fact that they're making a little bit of a difference overall in the footwear and apparel industry is Not changing the world but for us in terms of less sustainable or as is more sustainable or whatever they have less less unsustainable It's not sustainable. We get it We're trying to become less unsustainable and we know that's not gonna change the world But we just want to do the best we can given the reality of the circumstances and hopefully things will change over time I hope you found this interesting and provocative and maybe eye-opening I'd love to hear what you think so you can leave a comment in all the places You can leave comments you can drop me an email at move m o v e at join the movement movement calm and speaking of which Go to join the movement movement calm again to find previous episodes that are not just me ranting But there are other some of those but interviews with really interesting people about how to have a happier healthy or stronger body Feet first or breathing first or mind first if you have any other questions comments people that you think should be on the show You can use that same email move at join the movement movement calm But most importantly go out have fun and live life feet first