Three years ago Allbirds pledged to cut its per-product carbon footprint in half within four years, aiming for “near zero” status by the end of the decade. As of its most recent progress update, Allbirds is more than halfway to its reduction goal; in 2022 alone, the footwear company cut its per-product carbon footprint by 19 percent thanks to an approach that requires every employee and business partner to consider emissions — from design to materials to packaging. Allbirds is one of the few public companies that regularly highlights greenhouse gas emissions in its earnings report. In this episode of Climate Pioneers, a new GreenBiz video series featuring innovators and executives working to mitigate the climate crisis, host Heather Clancy will talk with Aileen Lerch, Allbirds’ director of sustainability.

The conversation will cover:

• A status report on “M0.0NSHOT,” the project to create a shoe with no carbon footprint
• Why Allbirds calculates carbon labels for its products, even amidst corporate skittishness about public climate claims
• How Allbirds replaced home-grown spreadsheets for carbon accounting with new software that makes data available companywide
• How Allbirds shares its methodologies with other fashion companies (and which ones)
• How Lerch interacts with key allies in the C-suite across the organization
• Her team structure
• Her typical day, team meeting and board prep techniques

Key Allbirds leadership insights and case studies will be posted as part of the new Climate Pioneers series on GreenBiz.com.

Interviewer: Heather Clancy, editor-at-large, GreenBiz Guest: Aileen Lerch, director of sustainability at Allbirds