Product Carbon Labels Driving Design
Ryan Miller, VP & GM of Private Markets at Persefoni, on building an ERP for carbon
Putting a carbon number on each shoe turned sustainability from a brand story into a product attribute that shoppers could compare. Allbirds made carbon as visible as size or material, which forced it to measure emissions shoe by shoe across wool, foam, manufacturing, shipping, use, and end of life. That mattered because it made lower emissions feel concrete at the moment of purchase, and it tied product design decisions directly to a public score.
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Allbirds rolled out carbon labels across all products in 2020 and described itself as the first fashion brand to do that. Its filings say the label came from a life cycle assessment tool that calculates kilograms of CO2e for each product, not just company wide emissions.
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That changes how a footwear team works. Designers cannot just pick softer foam or cheaper fabric. They also have to hit a carbon budget. Allbirds says it builds target carbon footprint into product creation alongside margin goals, so emissions become another design constraint like cost and comfort.
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The move also fit the broader Allbirds playbook. Around its 2021 IPO, the company paired product labels with open sourcing its footprint methodology and working with adidas on a 2.94 kg CO2e running shoe. The point was to lead the category standard, not just market one green sneaker.
This is heading toward a world where carbon labeling becomes normal in consumer goods, and the winners will be the brands that can actually redesign products to push the number down every year. If that happens, carbon accounting software, supplier data, and materials science become as important to brand building as advertising.