Our vision for regenerative sustainability.
If you’re waiting for perfection, you might never take the first step. That’s why we risk making mistakes. We fail, we stumble, we sometimes go astray – but we’d rather be moving forward. This may not mean that we do everything right, but it does mean that we do a lot of things better. We see it as our responsibility to leave the world a better place and with more diversity than we found it. Which simply means that we want to achieve “more” – more natural spaces, more diverse ecosystems, more fertile soils.
We want to play our part in creating a stable climate and greater social justice. Realizing this kind of regenerative sustainability—one that places environmental, social, and economic priorities on equal footing—takes people who are dedicated to turning that vision into reality.
“Fail, fail again, fail better.“
Samuel Beckett
Openness.
Openness.
Traditional supply chains are dominated by the same power imbalance that we, too, are dealing with. To counteract this, we enter into dialogue, and we listen.
Transparency.
Transparency.
Before a supply chain can be sustainable, it has to be transparent. Our goal is to work with suppliers whose processes we can trace seamlessly from start to finish.
Innovation.
Innovation.
To us, true innovation happens where it drives lasting change. That’s the only way we can tackle major challenges like the climate crisis and social inequality.
True Partnership Starts with Listening.
To create a positive impact throughout our supply chain, we’re changing how we make decisions. Honest dialogue with all our partners—especially those who are typically underrepresented—helps us gain a holistic understanding of the challenges we face.
Instead of imposing top-down mandates, we rely on genuine co-creation. A key milestone in this journey was the "Impact Collective" project: Listening attentively in direct conversations with factory workers and managers taught us a tremendous amount. Those learnings shape our approach to this day: We continue to build spaces where we can discuss challenges openly and co-develop solutions that benefit everyone involved.
Nordwolle from Rügen, Germany.
For years we have been equipping the winter Wildling Shoes models with a lining from our partner company on the island of Rügen. That makes them not only exceptionally warm, but more importantly, transparent. Because collaborating with Nordwolle has always afforded us a view into a largely transparent supply chain – from the harvesting of resources from the gray-wooled Pomeranian Coarsewool sheep to the loom in Germany’s oldest clothmaking mill.
Responsible use of cotton.
Conventional cotton cultivation is criticized for its heavy water consumption and the working conditions in the downstream production processes. Yet cotton offers some ideal attributes, particularly for shoes: It’s a natural material that has a long service life, and with proper processing, it’s highly durable. For the time being, we don’t want to replace cotton, nor can we. That’s why we make the best of it, for instance by using single source cotton. In addition, we also process recycled cotton, which doesn’t require a new raw material to be farmed in the first place.
Hemp – Material of the Future
As a material, hemp is hard to beat: compared to cotton, it requires very little water, thrives almost entirely without pesticides, and, depending on the farming method, can even improve soil health. Replacing thirsty cotton with locally grown European hemp seems like an obvious choice.
The catch? Decades of hemp bans meant that valuable knowledge around cultivation, fiber processing, and breeding was lost. We're on a mission to bring that knowledge back and rebuild a fully functioning European hemp supply chain.
To understand how this works in practice, we rely on hands-on learning projects. Partnering with the French cooperative Virgocoop gave us invaluable experience—from connecting farmers to operating fiber-processing machinery and spinning yarn. Alongside trials like the one at Gut Peetzig, these projects showed us which gaps in the European hemp value chain still need to be bridged, and what truly matters when it comes to durability and comfort.
