In this bonus episode you'll learn about the KEEN Effect: making shoes to make a difference — from access and inclusion to creating a lighter footprint on the planet.
When you think of KEEN, you probably think of their iconic sandals, the ones with bungee cord straps and big rubber toe caps. Over the years, KEEN has prioritized social and environmental responsibility. In this bonus episode, Shelby chats with Erik Burbank, the vice-president of the KEEN Effect and Kirk Richardson, a KEEN Effect advisor. Their mission is to have a positive impact on the world through philanthropy and sustainable footwear.
Learn more about KEEN.
Shelby Stanger: As someone who started her career in footwear at Vans, the shoe company, I'm a total shoe nerd. I pay a lot of attention to what I put on my feet. I don't want to be that person who wears bad flip flops on a steep trail or whose tennis shoes get totally soaked on a camping trip. That totally stinks. That's why it's important to invest in a good pair of shoes to bring on your outdoor adventures. About 10 years ago, I went on a standup paddling trip in the Amazon, there are lot of dangerous creatures, underfoot in the rain forest. And I needed a thick shoe to protect my feet, but I also needed something that could survive getting wet for a week straight. So I decided to invest in a pair of KEENs and I was so happy I did, they were comfortable, durable and secure on my feet. Since that trip, the company has come out with some newer designs and they've also done a ton of work to reduce the environmental impact of making those shoes.
Shelby Stanger: So in this bonus episode brought to you by KEEN, you'll hear more about this awesome company and the work they're doing to change the way footwear is made. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. When you think of KEEN, you probably think of their iconic sandals, the ones with bungee cord straps and big rubber toe caps. When they first came out, tons of people bought them. They stopped stubbing their toes on the trail, but they still got the airiness of a sandal. Over the years, KEEN has grown and flourished as a company that prioritizes social and environmental responsibility. Erik Burbank is the vice-president of the KEEN Effect. It's a group at KEEN whose mission is to have a positive impact on the world. Kirk Richardson is a KEEN Effect advisor and he has an extensive background in footwear. Erik and Kirk are old school shoe dogs. They both started working in the shoe industry decades ago.
Shelby Stanger: So Erik, what drew you to KEEN? How did you get involved in the company? When did you start? How long have you been there?
Erik Burbank: I started just about four years ago and I was coming from a role where I was CMO of a Norwegian company. And we had been living there for about eight years that our kids were growing up and our kids were ready to come back to the US. And when we got to that point, I started thinking, where do I really want to invest my energy and my time? And it came right down to values and I wanted to be able to look at my kids and tell them what I do and have them understand, and maybe even be proud of what I do. The reality is when you look around, there's not that many places that I felt I could go. And I was fortunate enough to have a relationship with the people at KEEN. And I was able to find a way to transition and join a place that really connected with my values and where I would feel good about showing up every day.
Shelby Stanger: Kirk, what about you? How did you get to KEEN?
Kirk Richardson: Well, it's a pretty simple story. I got a call from this guy named Rory Fuerst who founded KEEN and he just wanted to get together and talk. And I was at the 27 year mark at Nike and never thought I'd stay anywhere that long. I was like, "What? You'd like to have me do what?" And it's in the outdoor space and I love the outdoors and that was so attractive. And so I took on this project, helping him move his company to Portland and ended up being his general manager, titular president for a couple of years. And then got a chance to make this transition into corporate responsibility work and have been, I think, I've been at KEEN now 12 years. So something like that.
Shelby Stanger: What's the cliff notes version of what KEEN is. What do you guys do? What do you make?
Erik Burbank: Well, I think what do we do and what do we make? I think we like to think of ourselves as this values based business. That our intention is to make a positive impact on the world. And we just happen to be making footwear. That's not our purpose in life, our purpose is not to make footwear, our purpose is to make a positive impact on our communities and the planet. And we boil it down into two really big buckets that are multifaceted. And one of them is all about what we call access and inclusion. So that's the stuff that we do, like with Conservation Alliance, with our long-term partners like Outdoor Afro, who's all about making sure that there's opportunities for people to meet up in the outdoors. In that vein, we're a business that really is about togetherness and making all of this accessible, because I mentioned earlier that for us, the outdoors is really about mental and physical wellbeing.
Erik Burbank: And so that we're about access and inclusion and we're about reducing our impact on the planet. And we know that as a business, as a business, it's not good for the planet. So we're aggressively looking at what we can do ourselves. And when we find something that we believe is good and impactful, that we're trying to be much more aggressive about sharing that stuff as well, knowing that if we want to reduce our impact, the best way to do that is share with the outdoor community anything that we find to be advantageous around the idea of reducing our impact, but that's really what we're about. We happen to be making shoes. We love shoes. We're a bit unusual that we own factories, that we make our shoes in, as opposed to outsourcing everything. So it really requires a much deeper, more visceral knowledge of the details of shoemaking.
Shelby Stanger: Okay. So you own your own factories. You share your knowledge with other brands. What else makes KEEN different? What is the core of KEEN?
Erik Burbank: If you really want to understand who KEEN is, it's about the people that make up KEEN. KEEN is really made up of people that just want to make a difference. And everybody wants to be outside as much as possible, everybody shares the values that we have. And so when we look at the type of products that we make, a lot of it is coming from the experiences that people have, everybody rides bikes. I think we were talking just the other day about, it was a bike more challenge in Portland where they were trying to get everybody to ride bikes to work. And during that challenge KEEN, this relatively small little company, we logged more miles of our employees, riding bikes to work during that challenge than every other company in Portland, large and small.
Erik Burbank: And we've got employee resource groups that are focused on different areas that people are concerned about and those get started by our employees. And then we support them. And then we have people that individually are just going out there and are action takers, that are working on changing things for the better. We have people that have gone out and started signature campaigns to eliminate or reduce use of plastics in major grocery store chains like National Grocery Store Chains. And it started by an employee in our own building that went, became a national campaign. And of course, we encourage and foster because that's who we are. It's an all in approach.
Kirk Richardson: I think one other add to what Erik just said is in terms of how it started from a product perspective was it was this question, can a sandal protect your toes? And it was this hybridization, this idea of, could you provide boot like protection in a water sandal for people who are running rivers or fishing or boating, or just out waiting in a local stream? And the answer was yes. And emphatically so, and Rory came up with this unique way of compression molding, this protective toe thing that's become so iconic. And frankly, was really what caught a lot of attention right out of the gates in 2003 and four, and got this company moving pretty rapidly. I think taking a fresh approach to footwear design and development and materialization and all that stuff.
Kirk Richardson: Again, like Erik just said, a minute detail is pretty attractive. And I think exploring all kinds of questions, not just can a sandal protect the toe, but do you really need anti-microbials to fight foot odor? Well, the answer is no, you don't, and you can use things like probiotic lactobacillus to do this same effective work and yet be safe and not impact human health or the broader environment. And I think that's what attracted me to KEEN, is just a fresh way of looking at old conventional, I would say 20th century solutions to the footwear manufacturing process. It found a ready audience. And I think that's the point, be original, be bold and try new things. And I think that's a large portion of why we've gotten to be a reasonably successful, mid-size outdoor brand.
Shelby Stanger: These guys haven't just been bold in their shoe design, they've also taken a bold stance in their company mission. KEEN is made up of people who love both nature and shoes. They were making their products out of sustainable materials before it was cool. So it makes sense that since the inception of the company in 2003, KEEN has had a corporate responsibility program called The KEEN Effect, The KEEN Effect has worked on sustainability challenges ranging from removing perfluorochemicals from their shoes, to using naturally occurring probiotics, that's right, probiotics to get rid of foot odor.
Shelby Stanger: So what is The KEEN Effect? How did you start it?
Erik Burbank: I'll give you more of the origin story. So 2003, the company started, 2004, our first full year of business the tsunami hit in Southeast Asia, so massive devastation. One of the great tragedies of our time and it literally took minutes for leadership to say, you know what? We were just a small business, probably I don't know how big we were at that time, but a couple million dollar business. In an instant, they made the decision, we're going to take our full marketing budget, which at the time was a million dollars to try to get this company launched. And we put all of that money into disaster relief and recovery efforts. And that act solidified the notion that this company is and will always be mentioned and driven and values led. And within that year, we also started formalizing instead of just putting a large pool out there, the grants that we would give, and we started calling those grants KEEN Effect grants, so the notion of The KEEN Effect goes all the way back to our origins.
Erik Burbank: We're 18 year old company, most people think we've been around a lot longer. We're just shoemakers from Portland, Oregon. And the impact that we have had with different organizations and different groups has been fairly profound. I mean, the whole name, The KEEN Effect, actually that expression came from John Sterling, who is the executive director of the Conservation Alliance. And we were participating with that group and we were trying to figure out how we could have a big impact as a small group. And we worked with them on figuring out how to dramatically increase enrollment of membership and giving to that organization. And it worked, it worked dramatically well. And folklore is that when somebody asked John Sterling, "Hey, how did you get that accelerated growth?" He was like, "Hey, that's The KEEN Effect."
Shelby Stanger: Can you tell me about some of the work that The KEEN Effect is doing?
Erik Burbank: Late 2013, 2014, we had the opportunity to look deeper into our supply chain and how we're making our products and the team really honed in around chemical management. Because the dirty secret is it's easier to look at things like recycling, it's much more difficult and complex to get into the chemicals that are going into our products that are going into the world. And the one that I'm particularly proud to be associated with the people that made this happen is around the topic of PFCs. So PFCs are a class of chemicals, also known as PFAS that are some of the most noxious, terrible manmade chemicals that we've ever created. And they do a host of really bad things to us as humans and also the planet. The team looked at it and said, but everybody's using them, how do we stop using them? And it took several years, about four years, led by Kirk and a guy named Chris Enlow, who was really instrumental as a longtime KEEN employee as well, to figure out how to detox our supply chain, to remove these chemicals.
Erik Burbank: And after about four years, we were able to make that happen. And we started making PFC free footwear, which as far as we know, we were the only brand doing that back in 2018. And I would say that was a good KEEN Effect moment. And then maybe even more interesting is that in the last year, we took the additional step of saying, us being PFC free is good, but if we could get the whole industry to go PFC free, that would be even better. And we made an open challenge, but we supported that challenge to the industry to go PFC free, by giving them a detailed roadmap of what we did, all of the steps we took, the budgets that we needed, the safe, effective, and affordable alternatives. And without going into naming other brands, the reception has been really positive. And we believe that these other brands, with that additional inspiration are going to make that same journey.
Shelby Stanger: PFCs are pretty nasty and they are in everything, and it took you guys probably a lot longer than you thought to get rid of them. But during that four gritty years of getting them out of your products, was there ever a time where you were like, ah, I don't know if we should be doing this. This is really hard.
Erik Burbank: Shelby, we had 104 incidences of PFCs fighting their way back into our supply chain. So it's a really in-depth process of certifying vendors and material partners. Before we make products using third-party resources to test our products and certify that they are PFC free. And then we take the additional step of testing finished goods as well. So even after we completed that four year cycle over the next four years, we were still playing whack-a-mole where even after you test, they still slip in and then we have to go back, re-educate, help people understand why, corrective measures, et cetera.
Shelby Stanger: So there was no point during, you were like, why are we still doing this? This is like a never ending battle.
Kirk Richardson: At no time did we ever think about turning back because these things are so heinous, they compromise so many things. I mean, they lead to obesity, they affect your immune system. They're carcinogenic, they are the worst. But in the end, we can say proudly, at this point, we are 98% PFC free. The other 2%, in my opinion is you'll never get rid of them because of cross contamination in the broader world, we all live in.
Shelby Stanger: Sound nasty.
Kirk Richardson: One of the bedrock tools, one of the most essential things we can do is to have and fund and test for all restricted substances. So KEEN adheres to the most stringent, restricted substance list on the planet. And it gets updated annually as that landscape evolves. And we're not perfect, but we have a team that's dedicated to detoxifying everything we touch.
Shelby Stanger: That's cool. And not being a company that relies on stockholders, you're able to make some of these decisions because you're not always looking at just the bottom line.
Kirk Richardson: Yeah, it's exactly right. And so the footwear industry has used pesticides and biocides for decades. I mean, since the 20th century, and this is where it's good to be a 21st century, born this century company, we don't have to adhere to those stupid inertia solutions. And so we said, we're going to investigate, do something new and novel. We found a hockey equipment provider up in Canada, who said, we're going to attack this stench, foot odor in ice skates and in the hockey equipment, by using a lactobacillus probiotic, the same exact strain of a naturally occurring bacteria that likes to gobble up staff. It munches on staphylococcus, which is all over your skin and it eliminates the odor and we've been doing it unannounced for seven years now and not one complaint. And we've taken away a known carcinogen from wrapping around the lining of a shoe, and the sock liner in a shoe.
Kirk Richardson: Somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 to 50,000 kilograms have been removed from our supply chain since we started in 2014 on that project. And it was a simple switch. It's low hanging fruit. It's the easy switch, it's safe, it's effective, and it's affordable. It doesn't cost more than using a stupid pesticide.
Shelby Stanger: It's crazy how many chemical compounds and materials are found in shoes. And a lot of them aren't very good for us. When we come back, Erik and Kirk, talk about how KEEN turns recycled plastics into shoelaces and what to look for in your next pair of adventure shoes.
Shelby Stanger: I don't know about you, but I don't really think much about how my foot bends and moves when I'm out on the trail. Luckily for all of us, the folks at KEEN do, with their new technology, KEEN BELLOWS FLEX, they're making every step on the trail feel easier. If you're an avid hiker, you've probably dealt with boots cracking at the toe. That's what the KEEN BELLOWS FLEX is addressing, tested to withstand a million flexes, the boots require less energy to bend, which not only makes a step feel easier, but reduces the risk of cracking. This new key technology is available in three of their hiking boot styles, the Ridge flex Tempo flex, and the brand new Durand eval. You can find all three of these boots @ Rei or at rei.com. It's time to hike, happy.
Shelby Stanger: Sweaty feet, smelly shoes, stuff like this often has to do with what your shoes are actually made of. These days more brands are coming up with ways to creatively use recycled materials in the manufacturing process and it makes sense. We wear gear to help us enjoy the outdoors so of course, we also want our gear to be good for the earth. On the KEEN website, there's an amazing video about reusing plastic bags and turning them into shoelaces in yarn that are used in the shoes. You can check it out at keenfootwear.com. What recycled materials do you use in your shoes? I heard you use plastic bottles.
Kirk Richardson: Yep. It ends up getting in a circular sense, reconstituted into pellets that are extruded and end up becoming yarn for our polyester based webbing.
Shelby Stanger: Can you guys tell that story really quickly? Because I thought that was a really cool video on your website just really quickly, how a plastic bottle becomes yarn and what that process is like.
Kirk Richardson: Yeah. I mean, first of all, it has to be collected and aggregated and then washed, the materials are washed and then it goes into the process of going from a solid to a liquid. And what ends up happening is the former water bottle or soda pop bottle becomes a beat of plastic, which then goes into an extruder and it goes into a blow molding machine to come out with the shape that you want. If you're building water bottles, in our case, we don't want water bottles so the beads are then broken down into component parts that they can be spun into yarn, woven into webbing and processed out in rolls that are as big around as a wheel. At that point, they go to dye houses to get color. And from there, they go to factories who are going to cut stitch and saw webbing where we've designed it to go.
Shelby Stanger: I love that you're able to use plastic bottles and other recycled plastic substances in your shoes. So what percentage of the shoes are recycled content?
Kirk Richardson: It's probably around, in aggregate around 15% right now, but the trend line is increasing very quickly as we get access and our own mentality shifts. So the number one user of leather, when you're talking about leather, is the automobile upholstery marketplace, and there is a huge waste stream, there's a huge waste stream of leather cuttings that are perfectly legitimate for footwear. They're big enough for little pieces of leather to go where they need to go on building a shoe. So we are now harvesting that waste stream from the cutting room floor in a factory that's building Mercedes, BMW and Porsche leather seats and dashboards.
Shelby Stanger: That's awesome. I had no idea. Do you have any other sustainability tricks?
Erik Burbank: In our effort to reduce the impact on the planet, we realized that we're creating stuff and stuff is getting thrown away. So we try to make things that are more durable, but the other is to try to reduce the amount of resource that we need in the building. And then also reducing the impact of our businesses on landfills around the world. And so this idea of being able to go out and harvest industrial waste and taking that industrial waste and upcycling it into something new, and that has a new purpose and function in our footwear is such a compelling idea for us. And we believe it's a completely untapped stream of resource and has a way for us to reduce our overall impact. The car seat leather concept is one that we're putting in motion. We're launching these shoes later this year, there's 90 million cars made every year on the planet.
Erik Burbank: The leather that's getting used is very inefficient because of the large pieces of leather needed to make those car seats. So more than half of the hide goes to a landfill. So we're taking millions and millions of pounds. The opportunity behind this idea is to take millions of pounds annually of wasted leather and upcycling that into new footwear, which means less resource needed on the upfront to create into new leather, less going to landfills and clogging up our landfills and more beautiful, comfortable footwear that has a great story attached to it.
Shelby Stanger: Apart from working with the planet and the environment, The KEEN Effect also has some really great grant programs. Their grants aim to reduce our carbon footprint and make getting outside more accessible to everyone. If you want to know more about these grant programs, you can check out keenfootwear.com/keen-grants. I love that KEEN is a powerhouse in social responsibility. Their reputation as the rubber toed shoe company doesn't stop them from thinking critically about giving back to the earth and its inhabitants. What's the thing you think consumers most know KEEN for?
Kirk Richardson: I think really bomber sandals, if you are honest. And I think that's changing because sandals are probably in aggregate, becoming just a nice piece of our business, but we have it balanced with work boots and hiking boots and outdoor shoes of many types and styles.
Shelby Stanger: What do they most not know you for, though?
Kirk Richardson: What they don't know us for?
Erik Burbank: They haven't known about The KEEN Effect, they haven't known about the work that we've done since the inception of our company that we've always done because it was the right thing to do. And we didn't talk about it because we didn't think it was a story, it's just the right thing to do. And I think they know us for super comfortable, super durable, super protective footwear, that just helps them get whatever they're going out there to do, whether it's on a job site, whether it's on a hiking trail, your experience on the Amazon, you're on a river, it's going to get the job done. It's not going to let you down and it's not going to leave you without a footwear. And it's going to last a long time. That's what they've known us for. And I think people now are understanding more about who we are and what kind of mission we're on. And I go back to, we happen to be making shoes, but our real mission is to leave this place better than we found it.
Shelby Stanger: As a consumer buying shoes, I've known a little bit about the shoe industry, probably a little more than the average person, but not a ton. What kind of things should we look at when we're buying our shoes, caring for our shoes?
Kirk Richardson: Well, I think we've talked about two of them. One is, or is the brand or the shoe that you're purchasing using biocides to manage your foot odor in that particular pair of shoes? Two, are the textiles and upper of the shoe coded in this horrendous heinous PFAS, PFC, chemical compound that's found all over skiwear because it's really the durable water repellency spray, anti-weak, anti stain, are the companies thinking about that at all? And then the other substances you want to worry about a little bit too, from a toxicology perspective, are the metals. Mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium. Just does the brand that you're shopping with, have an RSL statement on their website?
Shelby Stanger: So RSLs are restricted substance list.
Kirk Richardson: I mean, just start with that. Do they have an RSL policy? Which one is it? What are they restricting? If you really want to get informed, you have to dig into those details.
Erik Burbank: You can find it in our website. I think Shelby, I think people should look at their footwear when they're shopping and they go through a selection criteria. I think they need to find something that's going to fit them well and be comfortable. I think the next filter, they need to think about is this product going to be durable? Because things that last, is a easy, simple way to make a more environmentally conscious decision. And then I think what Kirk just mentioned is, you can dig deeper and find out is this brand really doing the hard work or are they just flavor of the month, sticking a, we use some recycled PET in this product. We know in the US we only recycle about 9% of the plastics, so I get concerned about recycled plastic, recycled PET as a headline, because I think it's changing the narrative to distract, and it's not really attacking the real problem.
Erik Burbank: So if you find something that fits well, if you find a product that's going to be durable, that you know you can use for a long time, ask the deeper question to say, is this brand doing the hard work? And I think you're hearing a lot of what we've done. And we don't think of it as hard work, we think of it as necessary work. It's, we're compelled to do these things because that's the business we're in, we just happen to be making shoes.
Shelby Stanger: Erik and Kirk have inspired me to think about all my gear more critically. What are my favorite running shoes made out of? What are my favorite surf boards made out of? Are the companies that make them aligned with my values? Getting outside and enjoying the outdoors is such an important part of all of our lives. We have to make decisions big and small to leave this earth better than we found it. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Sylvia Thomas and produced by Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Palo Mottola and Joe Crosby. This episode is brought to you by KEEN. As always, we love it when you follow, rate and review the show, wherever you listen, and remember some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.