Alison Keogh and Mary McFadden, The Shoe Garden

For our third annual green issue, we expected to hear more of the bad news that’s currently plaguing the retail industry. With consumers hunting for drastically reduced merchandise and retailers struggling to stay afloat, who has time to think about the environment? The answer is more retailers and consumers than you might assume. “I have a friend who said to me that there’s a green wind blowing,” says Beezer Molten, owner of the Half-Moon Outfitters chain of stores in South Carolina and Georgia. “That’s what’s going to keep the footwear industry healthy right now. People are going to give green companies an extra look.”


GETTING THERE
Fortunately, green companies are increasingly producing product worthy of that second glance. “I think the product is getting better,” says Mary McFadden, co-owner of The Shoe Garden in New York City. “Companies like Naturino are coming out with two or three shoes in its line that are eco-friendly, and that helps. Everyone’s dabbling in the green thing, and we try to carry the ones that are high quality.”

“More of the traditional brands we carry that didn’t have green product two years ago have it now,” says Barry Bresnick, executive VP of PlanetShoes.com. “I think there are a lot of technologies out there today that weren’t available until recently. Rafters never had green product in the past, but now practically all of its shoes are made from recycled materials. Acorn wasn’t terribly green a few years ago, but now it has lots of products that are green or vegan. I personally don’t think customers feel they’re making a trade-off between quality and green. From what I’ve seen, the green product has every bit as much quality as the non-green product.”

But not everyone is impressed, especially in the outdoor category. “I think it’s getting better, but at a pace that’s a lot slower than we’d all really like,” says Molten. He noted one brand that, despite an admirably green mission statement, fell short in terms of footwear quality. “Their footwear isn’t selling particularly well for us, but we give it a shot because we believe in their philosophy. And I predict they will get footwear right in the long term.”

Beezer Molten, Half-Moon Outfitters

Joey Shepp, a sustainable business expert and editor-in-chief of GreenMaven.com, suspects Molten’s right. “I have total faith that sustainable product will be high performing going forward,” he says. “Up to this point, green has been a cause you support to feel good about yourself, but now consumers and manufacturers are making performance priority number one. It’s all about a better product.”

CUSTOMERS LIKE GREEN
Still, in this challenging economy it should come as no surprise that green alone is not enough. “When we’re shopping for product, we don’t differentiate between a brand that claims to be green and one that doesn’t,” says Molten, whose stores carry Simple, Chaco, Keen and Sanuk. “We’ll give green brands more of an opportunity to sell us, but at the end of the day, it’s still fit, style and color. The product has to be good.”

As Shepp explains, “People don’t want to feel guilty about wearing their Air Jordans, but they still want to wear them. They want the same shoe, they just want it to be green.”

The price has to be right as well. “Customers have a cost-value relationship in mind,” says Bresnick, whose Eco-Logical online shop carries Birkenstock, Chaco, J-41 and Merrell. “Some companies make a mistake of putting too much of a premium on green. If something looks like it should be $79, but because it’s green it’s $129, forget it. But if it’s $89, and there are benefits in how it’s made, then the customer is willing to step up. It’s a matter of degree.”

He points to his company’s recent addition of CarbonFree Plus shipping as an example of the degree to which his customers are willing to step up. While the site offers free shipping and returns, shoppers are offered the opportunity to make a small donation between $1 and $1.75 to Carbonfund.org to offset the emissions incurred by shipping their product. “A significant percentage of our customers are adding that fee to their orders,” he says. “Here’s an opportunity that costs customers more money, but allows them to participate in the green movement and feel good about it, and a large percentage are doing just that.”

The good news is that, as the green movement grows, customers may soon find that green product will be, if not cheap, reasonable. “We’re seeing brands like Wal-Mart buying greener products, so we’re going to see the prices come down because of the economies of scale,” says Shepp. “Add to that the cost savings associated with energy efficiency, and these products will reach the same price points as non-green products. Right now green is a fairly elite market, but it will eventually trickle down. Maybe not to the person looking for a $20 shoe, but to people looking for shoes that last a little longer.”

FEEL GOOD GREEN
Even if green product is a little pricier for the time being, retailers are still finding it’s important to have them on hand. “I think people are happy that they have it, even though a lot of the time they let their children choose the shoes,” says McFadden, who carries Naturino, Simple and Primigi. “It’s kind of like having a sale. People like to see you’re having one, but they may not buy the sale item. It’s a narrower market, and it’s not always a home run, but I think our customers want us to carry it.”

Brooks Maitland and Barry Bresnick, PlanetShoes.com

“I feel that everything we do that’s green contributes to our brand and who we are,” says Richard Polk, owner of Pedestrian Shops in Boulder, Colo. “And when the chips are down, people vote with their dollars, and they want to do business with people who care about the things they care about.”

A GREENER WHITE HOUSE
Thanks to the recent presidential election, consumers are thinking more about the eco movement. “I think the environment is on the forefront of so many peoples’ minds,” says McFadden. “And with Obama saying we can’t be dependent on foreign energy, this is an issue that isn’t going away.” While McFadden acknowledges the poor economy may temper consumer enthusiasm for green in the short run, she suspects that, as the economy improves, demand for green will grow—as long as it’s the right product. “Brands like Simple, if they get their styling correct and hit the right styles for the season, they’ll be a home run.”

Building on President Obama’s eco-friendly attitude could be a model for retailers, according to Shepp. “Every footwear retailer should carry a green option, even if he doesn’t carry many,” says Shepp, adding that manufactures would also be wise to commit to the green bandwagon, despite the gloomy economy. “They’ll all want to address sustainability to put themselves in the context of this new economy that Obama is talking about. They may not see a return in one year, but if they’re late getting into this, they’ll lose that brand appeal to other companies. It’s an investment, and there isn’t going to be a huge profit margin, but if they want to prepare for 2010 when the economy starts to come back, they better get into position.”

But green enthusiasm hasn’t reached every corner of the U.S. just yet. While Dennis Ranieri, owner of The Village Cobblery in Gualala, Calif., is personally dedicated to green, his customers aren’t. “All my lights are CFLs, I recycle, I don’t buy bags,” he says. “But my customers just are not interested in picking up a shoe because it’s green. I brought in No Sweat, but when I put the literature out on display, I didn’t get much of a response beyond a cursory acknowledgement. I’ve been really disappointed with the people around here.”

ECO REDUX
Perhaps the residents of Gualala are just feeling a little overwhelmed. As the green movement grows, the issues that define it are expanding, too. “There’s a rapid movement to look at sustainability holistically,” says Shepp. “It’s now a triple bottom line of people, planet and profits, and people are really looking at it in a much broader context. Add to that a savvier consumer, and they don’t just want a token green shoe. They want to see a whole green company.” Companies are already responding. “Eighty percent of the companies on the S&P 500 have green microsites or CSR (corporate social responsibility) reporting on their Web sites. Because consumers are asking for this information, it’s becoming the norm.”

The advantage of a broader definition is that brands that don’t make purely green product can still take part. Brands like Dansko, which has a gold certified LEED office building and community recycling station, have taken a big picture approach to sustainability that looks beyond shoes. “While Chaco, for example, is working on recycled shoes and the ability to resole shoes, you can look at other companies like Keen, which has taken a social approach with a huge campaign for responsible living, and Toms, which donates one pair of shoes to the needy for every pair bought,” Shepp points out.

Joey Shepp, GreenMaven.com

Retailers are looking beyond green product as well. McFadden notes that her store donates a percentage of proceeds to New York park services for Earth Day, while Molten recently received platinum-level LEED certification for Half-Moon Outfitters’ new distribution center. “For us, green construction was a great place to start,” he says. “It was a very logical and honest way for us to do the right thing. But it’s also relatively easy. It’s complicated and hard to buy a lot of other “green” products, like shoes. You hate it when you make a choice that seems like the greenest one, then learn there’s something about it that’s not so green.”

(GREEN)WASHING UP
As consumers discover how hard it is to make the greenest decisions in their own lives (paper or plastic? Biodegradable or long-lasting?), many are becoming more forgiving toward companies that may not be perfectly green, but are at least trying to make a difference. “I think it’s a path that we’re all on, and I think people are sophisticated,” says Polk, whose stores carry Dansko, Simple and Patagonia. “They know everything won’t be better just because they bought the right product, but if they make decisions with a value that’s set to making things better overall, they know they’re doing their share.”

Still, many retailers would like to see a green certification system for footwear, as some brands have taken advantage of eco confusion to present themselves as greener than they already are. But even greenwashing doesn’t have to be a negative, according to Bresnick of Planet Shoes. “There’s no question, there’s greenwashing out there,” he says. “Anyone who thinks he can get a marketing edge from it, is going to do it. But even that serves a purpose, in that it puts the message out there that this is an issue that’s important. What they’re saying is that they want to be greener than they are, and I bet you in two or three years, that company will be greener than they are today.”

Maybe we’ll all be a little greener. “I think sustainability is becoming ingrained in us, and we’ll see the day come when product will have no impact on the environment whatsoever,” Bresnick adds. “I think we will get there.”

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