Unless And NFW Debut The World’s First Regenerative Sneaker

More than 24 billion pairs of shoes are made every year, and 300 million pairs are thrown away. This presents a real problem for the planet, as the vast majority of shoes are made with plastics and other petrochemicals, which break down into harmful micro-plastics that find their way into our rivers and oceans, our food, and even our bodies.

As more brands – from giants like Nike, Adidas and Reebok, to more smaller but rapidly growing companies including Allbirds and Sanuk – jump on the sustainable footwear bandwagon, dozens of plant-based sneakers have been released. These products utilize everything from mushroom leather to upcycled fibers and plastic crafted from corn.

On December 1, 2022, Unless Collective announced that it is attempting to up the eco-savviness of the global sneaker game even further. The plant-based fashion company has partnered with material innovation company NFW (Natural Fiber Welding) to debut the world’s first regenerative sneaker. They’re calling the Unless Degenerate “the best shoe for the planet.”

Every part of this sneaker – from outsole to laces – is made entirely from plants and minerals. With zero plastic, the Unless Degenerate is designed to harmlessly decompose at the end of its life. Consumers also can return the shoes to the company when they are done wearing them. Unless takes full responsibility for ensuring that all their products can be repaired, recycled or decomposed.

Here, we speak with two of the founders who helped bring the Unless Degenerate to life: Tara Moss, cofounder and CMO of Unless, and Luke Haverhals, founder and CEO of NFW.

Tara Moss, the CMO of Unless, cofounded the regenerative fashion company with former Adidas brand president Eric Liedtke after he left in 2019 to pursue his passion to create a world where fashion no longer relies on harmful materials. “Throughout my career, I’ve always loved bringing exceptional brands to life in the digital space. But from there, I began to hone in and create sustainable business value in the connected world,” says Moss.

In the past, Moss contributed to Adidas’ Parley Ocean Plastic sneaker and Nike’s Move to Zero sustainability strategy. She also built Clownfish, a sustainable marketing agency, with clients including Sprite and Seventh Generation. “And that’s really what lit a fire in me,” she says. “I knew I’d found my life purpose – which led me to bringing the Unless brand to life to help build a plastic-free future for fashion.”

Leading a startup definitely has its daily challenges, says Moss, from QA’ing websites to figuring out how to make sustainable sneaker lace tips that will harmlessly break down when properly decomposed. But she loves working with “an amazing collective” of innovators, engineers, artists and activists challenging the status quo to become a force for good. “We just launched the world’s first regenerative sneaker, which I’m extremely proud of. This is a real solution to our industry's plastic waste problem. People don’t have to sacrifice style or substance to do something good for the planet,” she explains.

“Lean into what feels good,” Moss advises people looking to connect with their life purpose. “If you’re constantly swimming upstream, it will eventually catch up to you. No amount of money can mask that feeling of being out of alignment with your purpose. Find things you actually love doing, talk to folks who are good at doing those things and learn as much as you can from them. Additionally, finding a community to collaborate with has been the real game changer for me – bringing people together always leads to positive, purpose-driven change.”

Luke Haverhals is the founder and CEO of NFW, a leading material innovation company on a mission to reduce our reliance on plastics. NFW’s sustainable, natural, non-plastic fabrics are used by not only Unless, but also Ralph Lauren, Allbirds, BMW, H&M, Bellroy, New Balance, Deckers, Pangaia, Reformation, IWC Richemont, Hyundai, and Stella McCartney.

Haverhals has a background is in materials science. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Iowa, and shortly thereafter went on to explore all-natural alternatives to petroleum-derived plastics as an assistant research professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. His work there inspired him to found NFW—so that he could help clean up our world’s plastic problem.

“For far too long, the fashion industry and other industries have relied heavily on toxic materials like plastics and other petrochemicals,” says Haverhals. “But any solution must be able to scale globally. I founded NFW to serve brands across a wide variety of industries and show that we can create novel, high-performance, natural materials—at scale—that don’t have a negative impact on the planet and our overall health.”

Haverhals has faced challenges opening people’s eyes to the dangers of relying too heavily on plastics and other toxic materials in the products we use every day. However, being driven by a purpose, he says, “makes doing hard jobs ‘easier’—easier in the sense of knowing what is right to do and having the grit necessary to work through problems.”

To anyone looking to align their career with their life purpose, Haverhals offers this advice. “Pick a hard problem that is worthy of your time and then commit to working with all the necessary grit towards the solution. In this world, there are so many opportunities for a person to be selfish, but when someone gets a taste for making something better for someone else, there is no better feeling.”