San Franciso-based lifestyle brand Allbirds announced the creation of “M0.0NSHOT,” described by the company as the world’s first net zero carbon shoe, achieved without relying on offsets.

According to Allbirds, the new shoe has a carbon footprint of 0 kg CO2e, compared to an industry average 14kg.

The company said that the shoe’s development was the culmination of years of work, including the creation in 2018 of a carbon negative material, SweetFoam, in 2018, which informed the new foam for M0.0NSHOT, and a 2021 partnership with Adidas on a low-carbon shoe, Adizero x Allbirds.

The new shoe includes a carbon-negative regenerative merino wool upper sourced from New Zealand regenerative farming location Lake Hawea Station, a new superlight foam with 80% bio content, and bioplastic eyelets made from microorganisms that convert methane into plastic-like polymers. Packaging for the product is made from sugarcane-derived, carbon-negative Green PE, and transportation for the product will use biofuel powered ocean shipping and electric trucking.

Tim Brown, co-founder and co-CEO of Allbirds, said:

“M0.0NSHOT isn’t a silver bullet for the climate crisis — it’s a proof-point that, when we take sustainability seriously, and are laser focused on carbon reduction, we can make incredible breakthroughs.”

In order to enable other companies to follow its progress in developing low-carbon shoes, Allbirds also announced that it will open-source its toolkit for the new shoe.

Hana Kajimura, Head of Sustainability at Allbirds, said:

“We believe this will revolutionize the path to net zero, and act as rocket-fuel for the entire industry. We could spend decades debating the finer points of carbon sequestration, or we can innovate today with a common sense approach.”

Allbirds said that it will officially reveal the shoe in June 2023, with availability in spring 2024.

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