Brave Soles is Proud to be Carbon Neutral! 

From the first pair of shoes we have made and shipped, Brave Soles has been on a mission to think and create more circular and fair designs and practices. One of our first goals in 2021 has been to find a solid partnership to link up with to be able to do carbon neutral shipping. After all, our products are already circular, so this was the next logical step for us. 

Most of all, we wanted to do it in a way that was going to give both us and our customers peace of mind about how it was actually being accomplished. 

And now, we are happy to report that we are officially carbon neutral, thanks to our partners at Green Story. 

What does this mean?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities like burning fossil fuels and clear-cutting forests are rising quicker than the planet can naturally regulate, resulting in climate change. The fashion industry is one of the largest contributors to climate change.

We already use eco-friendly fabrics and employ sustainable manufacturing practices to significantly reduce our CO2 emissions. But it’ll take some time to reduce our emissions all the way to net zero; there are still emissions which are unavoidable. This is where carbon offsets come in. 

We’re tackling these unavoidable emissions by investing in offset projects such as renewable energy, forest conservation and energy efficiency. These projects prevent future carbon emissions and remove existing CO2 from the atmosphere.
We buy carbon offset credits from these projects that are equal to our unavoidable emissions. This provides crucial funding for these projects to continue to thrive while making all our products carbon neutral from ‘seed to shelf’. 

We want you to be part of our carbon neutral journey

You can now experience our carbon neutral journey across your entire shopping experience. Every carbon neutral product can be identified by a ‘carbon neutral’ visual on the product page. Click on the visual to see the exact amount of carbon offset for that product and explore the projects we invest in.

Every purchase confirmation email has a ‘Carbon Neutral’ button so that you can click and learn more about your carbon neutral order and the communities you’ve supported through the offset projects. We’ll also send you an official Carbon offset certificate from our partner, Green Story with a unique transaction ID to ensure the validity of the offset.

 How do we select offset Projects?

We worked with Green Story to calculate the CO2 emissions from each stage of our supply chain. This enabled us to measure our carbon footprint for each product and find the best suited carbon offset projects.

Our approach for carbon neutrality is to offset our carbon footprint along our supply chain and have a mix of Reforestation, Renewable Energy and Community projects. We worked with Green Story to handpick projects based on their type, location, and benefits. Each project supports multiple UN sustainable development goals in addition to offsetting CO2. All our projects are rigorously verified and certified through the Verified Carbon Standard. These independent verifiers make sure that the projects are working to deliver the benefits they promise.

It’s no coincidence that these projects are creating meaningful impact throughout the communities that our supply chain touches. See where we’re contributing below:

PROTECTING OUR FORESTS

Avoided Deforestation, Peru
A conservation and sustainable harvesting project in the Madre de Dios region in southeast Peru, working to improve carbon storage in the region.

INVESTING IN RENEWABLE ENERGY

Crow Lake Wind, South Dakota
A 36,000 acre wind farm in Chamberlain, South Dakota with an installed capacity of 162 MW that can power up to 129,000 homes.

It can be overwhelming to figure out where to put your efforts that will have the greatest impact, so we decided that we would first begin with looking at what we were already doing and where we could help move the dial on behalf of our customers. We knew that it needed to be more than just talking about it - we wanted to go the extra mile and we’re so excited we took our first step to carbon neutrality with Green Story!