Footwear Company Pledges Trees For Costa Rican Rainforest

Footwear and apparel company Etnies is promising to plant a tree in a Costa Rican Rainforest for each pair of shoes the company sells in its recycled-content line.

Established in 1986, etnies says it is the first skateboarder-owned and operated company in its market–and Costa Rica has long been a favorite destination for surfers and other outdoor enthusiasts, who are Etnies’ target customers. The country also aims to be carbon neutral by 2021.

Etnies said it is on track to supply at least 35,000 trees to the Maleku reserve in northern Costa Rica this year. According to Etnies, the Maleku are an indigenous tribe with a way of life that revolves around the forest. Deforestation for cattle farming and a rubber-tree war have both impacted the Maleku tribe over the past 150 years, and the United Nations has sanctioned their land as a biological corridor to be restored.

Etnies has partnered with non-profit La Reserva Forest Foundation in creating the "Buy a Shoe, Plant a Tree" program, which will supply trees to the Maleku. The program is linked to the sales of Etnies’ Jameson 2 Eco shoes, which are made from rubber recycled from old tires.

Rainforests help curb global climate change by providing more than a quarter of the oxygen to the world, and are home to thousands of species of animals. By planting at least 35,000 trees in the Rainforest, approximately 6,930 tons of CO2 will be absorbed from the Earth’s atmosphere throughout the trees’ lifetime. According to Etnies, that represents 465,051,360 etnies shoe boxes worth of CO2, placed end-to-end and wrapped around the Earth more than three-and-a-half times.

The company also created a video promoting the "Buy a Shoe, Plant a Tree" program (at the link below).