Vivobarefoot goes additive to resolve for footwear sustainability

One measurement not matches all. The truth is, it by no means has. That is the place Vivobarefoot, the ‘pure’ shoe firm, is available in. In partnership with Balena, the fabric science firm growing superior biopolymer supplies, the pair is addressing the adverse impacts of the footwear business via the mix of expertise, reminiscent of 3D printing, and supplies impressed by nature. We not too long ago caught up with Asher Clark, Co-founder of Vivobarefoot, and Pete Davis, Computational Design Lead at VivoBiome, the corporate’s innovation lab, to search out out extra about this collaboration and what makes it totally different from those who have come earlier than it.

The World Footwear Yearbook reviews that 24 billion pairs of sneakers are added to the market yearly. Vivobarefoot is dedicated to fixing this humanity-wide drawback utilizing what the corporate refers to because the ‘alien methodology’ – if aliens have been to return to Earth and begin making footwear, how would they do it in the event that they weren’t constrained by conventional expertise and deeply accepted methods of pondering?

Making an attempt that is bold, to say the least. Counterintuitively, in comparison with rocketry: “Rocketry is simply an equation, and these equations have been performed earlier than. The setting doesn’t change, however with footwear, we don’t have a continuing. Even when we have been the identical measurement, your foot may simply be monumentally totally different in a number of methods,” mentioned Pete Davis, who was beforehand Director of Superior Tasks at Hyperganic.

The journey towards a round end-of-life system for footwear faces a major problem rooted within the difficult nature of sneakers – each of their design intricacy and the various supplies used throughout manufacturing. The complexity arises from the multitude of elements – making recycling and reintegrating used sneakers into the provision chain a formidable process. Subsequently, the necessity for biodegradable materials alternate options turns into crucial – providing an environmentally pleasant strategy to the challenges posed by the present limitations of recycling within the footwear business.

Balena supplies

Balena was established in 2019 by David Roubach after he attended a chat by Asher Clark. The corporate goals to sort out the sustainability challenges by growing compostable, biobased, recyclable, thermoplastic supplies with superior efficiency properties for scaled, sturdy items manufacturing, together with footwear.

Its proprietary BioCir Flex is one such thermoplastic elastomer. Comprising over 50% bio-based content material, it actively reduces the dependence on poisonous, fossil fuel-based supplies sometimes used within the footwear business and goals to switch unsustainable supplies reminiscent of TPU, PVC, and LDPE. Via a organic recycling mechanism, merchandise crafted from BioCir Flex can decompose and biodegrade – safely returning to the bottom inside managed industrial compost environments.

Balena’s 3D printing particular materials – the BioCir3D – maintains excessive flexibility much like TPU, offering dependable and long-lasting 3D printed merchandise. Additionally it is biobased and industrially compostable – lowering the environmental influence of discarded prints and enabling the 3D printing of versatile and sturdy gadgets.

VivoBiome’s scan-to-print

As a part of Vivobarefoot’s strategy to utilizing enterprise as a pressure for good, the corporate is decided to create absolutely round barefoot footwear. VivoBiome (deriving from the phrases ‘biometric’, which means organic measurements that can be utilized to establish people, and ‘mimetic’, which means characterised by the character of imitation or mimicry) is its radical imaginative and prescient for a scan-to-print digital footwear system that reimagines how footwear is designed and made, utilizing biomimetic design ideas, additive manufacturing strategies, and Balena’s biobased and biodegradable BioCir flex materials to provide among the world’s first 3D printed, bespoke, and round footwear. This partnership is predicted to allow the wearer to reconnect to nature and transfer naturally – leaving no waste behind.

One of the fascinating components of this enterprise mannequin is the scan-to-print. This strategy signifies that, as soon as the wearer’s foot is scanned, the information captured is remodeled into native code for all main printing strategies – bypassing the necessity for guide human-oriented modeling software program and changing it as a substitute with end-to-end computational workflow. That is the place the ‘alien methodology’ is made clear.

Because of 3D printing, the expertise accountable for the democratization of fabric items, alongside superior bio-based supplies, the businesses hope to fight the immense footwear waste problem by enabling on-demand manufacturing – extending product lifespan via personalization and design flexibility. When requested whether or not Vivobarefoot is contemplating going ‘solely’ additive, Asher Clark acknowledged that it was “not if, however when.”

VivoBiome is at present within the testing part within the UK with a wear-testing group of VivoBiome Pioneers. The corporate plans to check Biome footwear made with Balena’s BioCer throughout the subsequent 6 months, and for the footwear to be out there to prospects within the subsequent 18 months.

3D printing is revolutionizing the footwear business at giant, as proven by the adoption of the expertise by firms reminiscent of HILOS, Zellerfeld, and Adidas. Final yr, VoxelMatters attended the primary annual FOOTPRINT3D occasion in Barcelona, the place the use instances and enterprise fashions of adopters have been explored in-depth. Our interview with the Founding father of HILOS, Elias Stahl, may be discovered right here.