All natural, fashionable, and comfortable shoes, which cater to all your wishes and have the potential to show into an ecological revolution — seems like the best sustainable business idea, proper?
Founder duo Taran Chhabra and Amar Preet Singh have already placed this enterprise idea into movement and are on their way to attain their task with Neeman’s, an online but now not-but-some other shoe organization. In a first in India, the Hyderabad-based totally startup has come up with a line of shoes — footwear, loafers, and joggers — crafted from Merino Wool fibre that is environment-pleasant as nicely.
So, how did the founders stumble on the idea of making sustainable footwear? Well, all of the clichés that you pay attention about lifestyles begin seeming actual at the same time as journeying. And, now and again, your studies can deliver start to a enterprise idea — an opportunity that has the ability to turn into a revolution.
The idea in the back of Neeman’s took place whilst Chhabra changed into traveling, and he nearly missed a teach, the cause being over-packing! The perpetrator became separate pairs of footwear for precise activities and it turned into the ‘no one-length-suits-all’ problem that led Chhabra to start thinking about designing one multi-purpose shoe that could be cozy for all-day wear — be it casual or formal dressing needs to even exercising in addition to do different sports.
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Comfortable Shoes Are Now Environment-Friendly: The Driving Idea Behind Neeman’s
Neeman’s founders Amar Preet Singh (L) Taran Chhabra
While on his quest to show this idea into a fact, Chhabra travelled extensively to recognize how the shoe manufacturing industry labored. It became then that he understood the magnitude of the environmental hazards resulting from the industry.
“What I saw turned into puzzling, what I noticed changed into stressful, due to the fact each cloth that goes into the shoes is both synthetic or manmade,’’ says Chhabra.
Most footwear to be had within the market use synthetics, plastic, petroleum byproducts, liquid petroleum gasoline, and herbal gas, resulting in a whole lot of pollutants with immoderate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These products are non-biodegradable, take a long time to decompose — in impact, they are extremely unsafe to the environment.
What began as a want all of sudden become an altruistic assignment. The unmarried-minded choice to make Neeman’s’ shoes as nature-pleasant as viable, even as generating them in the most sustainable way, have become a pledge for the cofounders.
Taking The High Road: The Making Of Neeman’s Shoes
The Neeman’s founders desired to blaze a brand new trail by means of absolutely ditching synthetic materials in the footwear they produced. Naturally, it wasn’t easy — a lot of trial and errors went into the making of the shoes until, ultimately, the founders chanced upon Merino Wool. The wool, which comes from Merino sheep in Australia, is evidently renewable, soft, anti-bacterial, moisture-soaking up, odour-resistant and designed to be worn all yr round. It is likewise very long lasting. It turned into simply what they wanted.
The agency collaborated with The Woolmark Company in growing the Merino Wool material. “I reached out to a organisation referred to as the Woolmark Company, a non-profit funded via Australian wool farmers. I defined to them how India is a massive market and how those wool-based totally shoes might be superb for Indian weather conditions and that we should do with an surroundings-pleasant shoe,’’ Chhabra defined.
Then started the manner of designing these sustainable footwear. Neeman’s shoes incorporates a detachable shoe insole fabricated from renewable rubber and castor bean oil, instead of the usually used, risky petroleum-based totally oil. The shoe lining is abrasion-resistant, gentle, and sturdy and ideal for Indian weather conditions, both for intense summers and winters.
A People’s Brand, Sustainable All The Way
While the founder duo commenced off on their shoemaking journey with the preliminary notion of designing a multi-motive shoe, Neeman’s later decided to give you a couple of style, however still confined it to a few — a sneaker, a loafer, and a jogger. Primarily designed for men, those footwear are, but, unisex. They are priced upwards of $91 (INR 6,500) and Neeman’s is likewise making plans to roll out footwear for women in 2019.
Neeman’s follows a right away-to-client model for its income via its website and has a seven-day trial policy throughout which customers can return the footwear in the event that they don’t like them.
Being ecofriendly is so ingrained inside the DNA of the company that even the packing containers used to ship the shoe are eighty five% recycled waste paper. Ensuring efficient and humane operating situations for his or her employees and the people who collect their shoes is paramount for the founders and they ensure that every hyperlink in the deliver chain resonates with the project of the business enterprise.
“It’s continually going to be a emblem that clients are going to need to be related to due to the fact they see the cost of sustainability as well as comfort with the shoes,’’ says Chhabra.
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Neeman’s has no plans of liaising with different ecommerce gamers in the meanwhile however plans to open experiential offline shops to permit its clients to experience the shoes before buying them.
Wool-Based Shoes: A Rising Trend Globally
Wool-based shoes had been gaining reputation internationally, be it for comfort, style, or virtually due to the fact they are an ecologically aware preference.
While speakme of woollen shoes, the first call that pops up is the well-known San Francisco-primarily based emblem — AllBirds — which went on to be valued at $1.4 Bn in a trifling years on the grounds that its inception. The emblem, which, too, makes shoes from Merino Wool, has emerge as a household name in fashion, corresponding to PUBG in video games. Everyone who can is wearing a pair of AllBirds. AllBirds’ mission is generating eco-friendly shoes and the emblem has managed to pass on that sentiment to its customers.
While Neeman’s is aligned in spirit with the environmentally conscious customer, we are able to have to wait and look ahead to its impact in India, thinking about the marginally steep rate points of the shoes, the road situations inside the u . S . A ., and the general apprehension human beings have approximately attempting some thing new. The corporation, but, has started out out with a wonderful consumer reaction and is very hopeful that greater human beings join Mission Neeman’s.
