Brooks to Convert Bestselling Shoe to Carbon Neutral
Brooks is showing its commitment to sustainability by converting its biggest selling running shoe into a carbon-neutral one.
The Ghost 14 will now be made with 59 percent recycled raw materials in its uppers — a move that represents the company’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions by focusing on converting traditional polyester textiles to recycled polyester alternatives with lower carbon emissions.
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Brooks has committed to converting materials it uses in its products to recycled or renewable alternatives with 100 percent recycled polyester and nylon by 2023.
The Ghost 14 will launch on July 1 and will retail for $130, the same price as the previous version. It will be marketed on Brooks’ social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. The company will also send out teaser e-mails to customers. Additionally, there will be digital ads that will go live on July 1.
“We’re proud to be able to associate a sustainability attribute with one of the top-selling running shoes in the market,” said David Kemp, Brooks’ senior manager of corporate responsibility. “When going through their shopping experience, runners will be able to delineate the Ghost 14 — and future iterations — as being carbon neutral through package design call-outs as well as through distinct digital marketing collateral.”
Brooks plans on rolling out the same technology to other shoes as as it works toward converting its entire range to carbon neutral over the next several years, Kemp said.
“We decided to start with turning the Ghost carbon neutral as it’s one of our highest-selling products and would make the largest immediate impact,” he explained. “As part of our 2030 commitments, we will continue to expand these efforts to other products. To become sustainable in our consumption as well as responsible in our sourcing, we will move to convert all of the brands’ offices and operating facilities to renewable energy by 2022, convert all sock liner top cloths and lining materials in footwear to dope dyed — a technique that can reduce carbon emissions by as much as 90 percent — by 2024 and have all materials in Brooks’ product contain a minimum of 50 percent recycled or renewable content, with all upper materials containing 100 percent recycled or renewable content by 2030.”
Brooks is not alone in its pledge. Adidas has been a leader in the sustainable footwear space and will produce 17 million pairs of shoes made with recycled plastic waste from beaches and coastal regions this year. In May, it teamed with Allbirds to introduce the first running shoe under their Futurecraft.Footprint partnership that features a sneaker with a carbon footprint of less than 3 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per pair. Allbirds also introduced running shoes, the Tree Dasher and the Wool Dasher, that use renewable materials. And Nike has committed to a Move to Zero initiative and today, more than 75 percent of its footwear and apparel contain some percentage of recycled material.
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