Aldo makes strides on eco-conscious initiatives
David Bensadoun doesn’t want Aldo Group to just sell shoes.
The chief executive officer says he hopes the Montreal-headquartered company goes beyond footwear and accessories to inspire — both its customer base and its industry peers.
“I want us to inspire love, confidence and belonging in everything we do, through all the products we sell and the services we offer,” Bensadoun explains. Oh, and he also wants to protect the environment, while he’s at it.
Q Aldo has made several recent announcements about increasing its sustainable ambitions. What can you share about this? A 2019 is a big year for us in terms of our sustainability efforts, but the Aldo Group has been working on corporate responsibility initiatives over several decades. Most people don’t know but 2010 was when we started launching initiatives to reduce waste and energy consumption. Our teams have been working very hard to be sustainable at every touch point in our business.
Q What are some of the new initiatives?
A In April we launched a partnership with Give Back Box. The program provides a platform for Aldo ecommerce customers to donate old shoes, clothing, handbags and other goods to charities by reusing their Aldo shoebox — or any box — and prepaid shipping label.
We announced (in August) that we were breaking up with single-use shopping bags, saving over eight million bags annually. We are currently phasing out our paper and plastic shoppers to free our customers from needing a bag, and simply using our box. It’s eco designed with a built-in rope and made from 80 per cent post consumer recycled materials.
And on Aug. 26, Aldo launched its very first sustainable sneaker — The RPPL, pronounced ripple. We were able to utilize a sole formulated with Bloom Foam, an innovative, carbon-neutral raw material derived from lake algae biomass. What’s amazing about Bloom Foam is that it turns harmful algae overgrowth into a sustainable alternative to traditional textiles. The RPPL is also constructed with recycled plastic bottle yarn, made from three to six plastic bottles.
Q And why is this so important to the company? A It’s our goal to make it easy for our customers to stay fashionable and to ‘choose good.’ The ALDO Group is the first fashion footwear and accessories company to be certified climate neutral and this is something we’re so proud of. We’re always exploring different ways to reduce our environmental impact and I want to make sure that ... we continuously challenge ourselves and those in the industry to explore even more ways to advance sustainability.