Allbirds shares its carbon footprint calculator

Allbirds, the San Francisco-based footwear B Corp, has introduced an open-source carbon calculating tool for the fashion industry.

Allbirds said on its website that it understands that sharing confidential knowledge does not make the most business sense. But, the global warming issue, on the other hand, is far larger than industry. And if competition got them into this mess in the first place, maybe teamwork will help them get out.

The instrument, known as the life cycle assessment (LCA), measures the carbon footprint of products, identifies hotspots, and encourages emissions reductions. Data unique to the Allbirds supply chain can be found by a collaboration with SCS Global Services. There’s also a manual of pointers on how to account for emissions from materials, manufacturing, transportation, consumer use, and end-of-life.

It has sent an email to contacts at companies including Levi’s, H&M, Adidas, Burberry, and Gucci, informing them that they can now use the platform to calculate carbon emissions in their supply chains which is now available at FreeTheFootprint.com.

In a statement, Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds co-founder and co-CEO said that for far too long, many brands have prioritized marketing sustainability over adopting holistic, high-impact strategies, and it has succeeded to some degree.

He adds that they need brands to take responsibility for what they share with customers if they want to continue moving fashion toward a more sustainable future. To cut through the noise, having a key, uniform identifier like Carbon Footprint to test sustainability statements and force transparency from companies is crucial.