Sustainability, Sneakers, and the Future of Fashion: A Class Project with AVRIO

by
Cassandra Aguila

AVRIO Footwear, founded by John Matthews in 2018, is a sustainable and transparent athletic footwear brand that uses algae and other organic components in the production and development of their shoes. John and his team created the AVRIO brand to “Make Tomorrow Beautiful” through collaboration with other brands, competitors, suppliers, and consumers.

AVRIO

When developing the AVRIO brand, John and his team focused on the pillars of collaboration, eco-innovation and transparency. The question John proposed when building this brand was how AVRIO could make the largest impact on cleaning the environment and further educate his team, consumers, and competitors on ideas, technologies and innovations to build a more sustainable future.

The company’s mission is to champion innovative new materials and sustainable processes, without sacrificing our environment. AVRIO strives to implement cutting edge eco-materials and sustainable designs that will directly impact people and the environment in a positive way.

AVRIO created the first shoe that is designed around a revolutionary new foam recycling technology that allows the company to make new shoes out of old, recycled shoes. Additionally, AVRIO partners with OCEANWORKS, a company that removes plastic from our oceans and recycles it for use in sustainable, eco-conscious materials, to implement knitted yarn made from recycled plastic bottles removed from the ocean to help clean up our waterways and avoid the creation of new plastics.

Our Sustainability and the Future of Fashion class at LIM College was given the task to conceive and propose a new sustainability Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)/Take Back Program initiative for AVRIO. Through this project, we were responsible for creating a plan for a sustainable circular initiative for AVRIO where consumers can return their no-longer-desired footwear and further use those components for future styles.

By meeting with AVRIO CEO John Matthews, our class gained a deeper understanding of the AVRIO brand as well as sustainability practices in the footwear industry. He was also kind enough to provide our class each with a free pair of AVRIO shoes in any style and color of our choice! What a great reward for working on this project! Thank you, AVRIO!