Please Steal Our Approach to Sustainability

On Tuesday, I got to hear Joey Zwillinger, the co-founder of Allbirds, share more about their unveiling last week of the world’s first net zero carbon shoe. The irony is that it was not at a sustainability conference. It was at an event devoted to business innovation, put on by the Economist. Most of the attendees were heads of strategy, innovation or digital transformation. But a surprisingly large percentage of the speakers were heads of sustainability, or companies with sustainability as a core part of their value proposition, like Allbirds. It was a reminder that ambitious sustainability goals are driving the innovation agenda for many organizations.

Sustainable footwear

For those of you not familiar with the “cashmere sweater” of footwear, Allbirds is a remarkable brand. It was launched in 2016 as a B Corp in one of the most competitive categories in footwear with a focus on three principles: comfort, simple design, and sustainability. It caught the attention of influencers from Silicon Valley to Hollywood, leveraged an online direct to consumer model buoyed by affiliates and retail. Five years later, it went public and its valuation rose to over $4B. It’s come down dramatically from those financial highs, but the company has sold over 8M pairs of shoes.

As part of explaining how to make a net zero carbon shoe, Zwillinger shared the story of SweetFoamⓇ, the innovative sugarcane based material they invented for the sole of their shoes, one of the most environmentally unfriendly parts. When Allbirds figured out how to make the materials for a more sustainable sole, they ran into a different problem: finding a supplier who could manufacture it cost-effectively given their small volume. Their solution: open source the innovation and give it to every other shoe brand in the market including competitors. When Amazon’s private label team famously imitated the Allbirds design, Zwillinger wrote an open letter to Bezos saying “please steal our approach to sustainability” as well.

How did Allbirds "out-innovate"?

What I find fascinating about their story is that I know just how innovative on the sustainability front some of Allbirds competitors are. Hannah Jones, who led Nike’s innovation team, now leads the Earthshot Prize. So how did Allbirds “out innovate” the behemoths on this front - eventually leading to a “collaboration over competition” partnership with Adidas with the Adidas team admitting, “If you really want to drive change, you need to look outside to people that know more than you.”

Fresh perspective

I can point to several reasons based on Zwillinger’s story. First, the classic “outsider” benefit. Zwillinger knew nothing about the footwear business, but he knew renewable materials. Before Allbirds, he worked at a biotech firm leading the renewable chemicals business. His co-founder was a World Cup Soccer player with a design degree. One principle of innovation is that often people who don’t know what they don’t know are able to identify solutions that insiders perceive as impossible.

Innovate, then scale

Second, simplicity and small scale make innovation easier. The innovation teams at large companies often have to ask “can this be done at scale” for something new. If the answer is no, then they keep looking for something that can scale. Smaller companies can test the innovation in small quantities, get it right, then worry about how to scale it (or in Allbirds case, get enough scale to manufacture through open sourcing).

Savvy marketing

Finally, sometimes constraining resources unlocks creativity. Nike spends nearly $300M a month in advertising. Allbirds was only spending $400K per month so had to look for creative ways to get the word out. Their strategy, laid out here, focused heavily on earned media, influencers, word of mouth, and affiliates to start.

It was quite a delight to see sustainability and B Corp principles set a room of corporate strategists abuzz. The conversations at breaks were also a reminder of how many leaders are new to this world. But I do believe we are on the cusp of crossing the proverbial chasm, and that is absolutely needed right now.