Global fitness brand Reebok has unveiled the inaugural product from its ‘Cotton + Corn’ sustainable products initiative, in a move that brings its first plant-based footwear to the market.
Developed by the Reebok Future team, the Cotton + Corn sustainable products initiative aims to create shoes “made from things that grow.” The first release – NPC UK Cotton + Corn – is constructed from an upper made of 100% cotton, and a corn-based sole. In addition, the shoe has insoles that are derived from castor bean oil and comes in packaging that is 100% recycled.
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“Most athletic footwear is made using petroleum to create synthetic rubber and foam cushioning systems,” says Bill McInnis, head of Reebok Future, Reebok’s innovation department dedicated to creating new technologies, ideas, techniques and prototypes.
“With 20 billion pairs of shoes made every year, this is not a sustainable way of making footwear. At Reebok, we thought ‘what if we start with materials that grow, and use plants rather than oil-based materials?’ By using sustainable resources as our foundation, and then through ongoing testing and development, we were able to create a plant-based sneaker that performs and feels like any other shoe.”
For the Cotton + Corn initiative, Reebok partnered with DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products, a leading manufacturer of high-performance bio-based solutions. Its Susterra propanediol, a pure, petroleum-free, non-toxic, 100% USDA certified bio-based product, derived from field corn, is used to create the sole of the Cotton + Corn shoes.
As a result, the NPC UK Cotton + Corn is the only footwear product on the market that has been certified as containing 75% USDA certified biobased content.
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By GlobalDataAnd this is just the start for Reebok, McInnis explains. “We are on an ongoing path to create a different type of footwear – so that you can feel good about what you’re wearing and where it came from,” he says.
The NPC UK Cotton + Corn is available in limited quantities on Reebok.com/us/CottonandCorn, priced at $95.
