Orba Backing Green Friday To Counter Black Friday Consumerism

As hyped retail event Black Friday approaches, conscientious businesses such as sustainable Wellington eco-footwear company Orba are looking for alternatives to the often frantic and mindless consumerism that saw Kiwis last year spend a record $248 million over the four day sale.

Rather than support hyper-consumerism and fast-fashion trends, Orba is asking people to join Green Friday on November 25th - a movement about making conscious purchasing decisions and supporting brands and products that put sustainable practices at the forefront of their business activities.

Nearly every aspect of Orba shoes are made from plant-based or biodegradable ingredients, and the company places huge importance on the sustainability and environmental aspects of its business, right throughout their production chain. They are B-Corporation certified and have won multiple sustainability and design awards.

Orba Sustainability Manager Gillian Boucher says the shoe industry is an example of products being made with little thought about where they will end up at the end of their lifespan.

“We are fighting back against the pollution caused by the more than 20 billion shoes that are produced globally every year and destined for landfill,” she says.

“A major part of the problem is fast fashion, which retail events like Black Friday only encourage, sometimes even resulting in incidents of retail rage or violence”.

Black Friday, a US-based tradition where sales are held on the first Friday after Thanksgiving, has been widely adopted in New Zealand and Australian retail sectors, despite the seeming irrelevance. It has overtaken Boxing Day as the biggest retail sale event of the year, with research showing over 60 percent of Kiwis last year planned to take advantage of the sales.

“We want to encourage people to avoid the hype and unnecessary spending of Black Friday and to think about their values when they choose to spend their money,” Gillian says.

“Green Friday, which started in the 1990s as ‘Buy Nothing Day’ is a great alternative and has been growing in traction ever since, as people realise we need to push back against the corporate agenda”.

Orba shoes are made of non-toxic, plant-based materials, and are designed to biodegrade. This means that when they come to the end of their life, they don’t damage the soil they end up in, unlike synthetic and plastic materials that release toxins into the ground as they break down - a process that can take up to hundreds of years.

The revolutionary result of a design process melding inspiration, aesthetics, technical excellence, ethics and environmentalism, almost every aspect of Orba shoes, from sole and upper to eyelets,

stitching and lace-ends, is made from natural, biodegradable materials, with 94 percent of it plant-based, including flax, kenaf (similar to hemp) and ramie (similar to nettle).

The company has developed a unique, bespoke bio-rubber sole made of natural rubber, rice husk ash and coconut oil, and insoles of cork, coconut husk and natural rubber - a formulation that is not only a global first, but is designed to eliminate the problem of disposed shoes in landfill taking from 40 to 1000 years to break down.

Last year Orba supported World Soil Day instead of Black Friday.

For more information visit www.orbashoes.eco.

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