Vivobarefoot’s Founder On the Way forward for Regenerative Enterprise

In 2022, footwear and life-style model Vivobarefoot bought a document 773,000 pairs of footwear, however for those who ask co-founder and Chief Ecosystem Officer Galahad Clark about his imaginative and prescient, he’ll let you know that above gross sales, the model has way more far-reaching targets: human and planetary well being.

I not too long ago sat down with Galahad to debate Vivobarefoot’s regenerative enterprise initiatives that embody aggressive sustainability targets, a recycle and restore platform, upcoming bespoke scan-to-print footwear, and why the model believes that seeking to indigenous cultures will present us methods to enhance fashionable footwear design.

Learn extra from our dialogue beneath.

Christopher Marquis: Inform us a bit of about your background. The final title sounds acquainted. How did you get into barefoot footwear?

Galahad Clark: My household’s heritage lies deeply rooted within the footwear trade – we’re seven generations of cobblers from Glastonbury, Somerset England, relationship again to 1825. Whereas Clarks Sneakers stands as one of many oldest and most acknowledged footwear companies on the earth, I started a private journey to revolutionize the best way society perceives footwear by the appearance of Vivobarefoot.

Along with my cousin and co-founder, Asher Clark, we launched into a world odyssey, immersing ourselves on the earth of shoemaking. We sought knowledge from each modern shoemakers and indigenous craftsmen, in search of to soak up their information and strategies. All through our travels, a paramount precept crystallized—the essence of barefoot design and the inherent goal of footwear is safeguarding our ft from cuts, chilly, and warmth. We imagine essentially the most extraordinary piece of expertise ever included into footwear is the human foot itself. Thus, our model pivoted round this profound realization, liberating ft to maneuver freely as supposed by Mom Nature.

Marquis: What does a regenerative enterprise mannequin seem like at Vivobarefoot? What are you doing as a pacesetter to influence social change?

Clark: At Vivobarefoot, we’re dedicated to being a regenerative enterprise each in and out. This implies our enterprise is one which helps the connection to pure programs for the those who work in our firm, those that make our merchandise and the those who put on them. We wish to foster a working surroundings the place folks really feel welcome to deliver their entire selves to work and subsequently are in a position to uncover extra of their pure inventive spark. I imagine this humanness invitations innovation, collaboration and purposefulness into the guts of on a regular basis conferences and decision-making. Our tradition of agility and empowered entrepreneurialism permits failures to be repeatedly remodeled into learnings and reduces the burden of paperwork.

Wanting exterior, we aren’t afraid to shake up the established order and revise ingrained, recurring approaches to commerce. This implies swimming ever extra firmly in opposition to the tide to realize substantial social and environmental influence. In 2020 we achieved B Corp certification and we’re going above and past the standard 3-year B-Corp evaluation by conducting self-assessments yearly.

We additionally imagine in worth chains over provide chains. We provide full transparency by our newly launched Digital Worth Chains Map about precisely who we’re working with, the place they’re, and the way they’re performing in opposition to Vivobarefoot requirements. Moreover, we created an in-house influence fund, the Livebarefoot Fund, which is an incubation hub for social and environmental initiatives that purpose to pioneer regeneration options. We obtain this by driving analysis, innovation and motion in footwear, experiences and group engagement.

Marquis: Why do you imagine historical knowledge is the muse for the way forward for human and planetary well being? Are you able to inform us extra about your initiatives with indigenous communities?

Clark: Now we have constructed our fashionable life on the idea that we’re separate from nature. Because of this, our sedentary, cushioned, poisonous existence is making us and our planet sick. Our base fulcrum at Vivobarefoot is the notion that we’re nature and nature is us, so as a substitute of combating nature we have to let nature heal us and the best way we imagine we will embrace human nature is to “rewild” our lives.

Now we have traveled the world on the hunt for the proper shoe, and alongside that journey we had been launched to a few of final persistence hunters left on earth primarily based within the

Kalahari Desert of Africa, the Ju’/hoansi bushmen, artisan from the Saami group in Finland, the Mongolian feltmakers, the moccsain makers in Canda and cobblers in India. We started studying and collaborating with the cobblers who’ve been making footwear for millennia, and gained large perception into how we might finest simplify our designs, and enhance the pure perform and environment-specific efficiency in all our footwear.

We devoted ourselves to working with the Ju’/hoansi tribe to create 2,000 sandal run that can be launched this summer season making a grassroots enterprise the place the earnings are reinvested instantly again to the local people. Reviving this crucial historical craftsmanship with the San in addition to different indigenous communities world wide will stay core to our ongoing indigenous advocacy efforts.

Marquis: As you realize, a number of trade gamers have made lofty guarantees with their sustainability platforms however are lagging of their supply of circularity. What do you see missing within the trade’s efforts to deal with environmental considerations? Is there sufficient transparency?

Clark: The reality is, no footwear are really regenerative and anybody who claims in any other case will not be being clear. At Vivobarefoot, we make the most of a Vmatrix device to internally assess the sustainability of our design rules and rating every thing from longevity to supplies and end-of-life potential. All of our footwear are made from biofabricated, recycled and pure supplies and we’re consistently engaged on methods to make footwear that’s extra simply recyclable repairable or biodegradable.

In 2024 we’re tackling our largest innovation but once we launch VIVOBIOME within the US. The mission will purpose to unravel the overproduction and manufacturing waste that’s widespread within the months-long cycle it sometimes takes to supply a pair of footwear with a radical scan-to-print round footwear system that can reimagine how footwear is created. Made-to-be-remade, the footwear can be made person-by-person, foot-by-foot, out of native supplies.

Marquis: Inform us extra about your e-commerce platform, Revivo. What can shoppers do to make a distinction at house?

Clark: Yearly 22 billion pairs of footwear are dumped into landfills.

We wish to attempt to fight this in an actual approach, so we created our recommerce platform, Revivo. Launched in July 2020, it’s the first repair-for-resale web site launched by a footwear model. On Revivo, clients can purchase professionally refurbished Vivos at 20-50% off the unique worth. Worn Vivos are cleaned, sanitized, after which checked in order that any faults are repaired by a educated craftsperson earlier than they’re boxed and able to be bought. Because of this clients that store on Revivo obtain secondhand merchandise which might be licensed as refurbished by specialists, in contrast to on resale marketplaces. Revivo sells to greater than 50 nations and gives greater than 15,000 merchandise at any given time, many from earlier collections which might be not out there on the Vivobarefoot web site.

Revivo gives a world take-back program that permits clients to ship again worn Vivos to make sure that they don’t find yourself in landfill. Whereas we love seeing this round economic system applied by numerous manufacturers as of late, the footwear trade continues to be catching up. We’re most likely most happy with the huge of progress in repairs we’re already seeing, with practically 31,000 final yr. So the extra Vivos which might be returned again to us (presently we see 48% return fee), the extra we will restore and hold them away from landfills.