The core of making a flip-flop hasn’t changed much in the past few decades. The materials and design have been updated, but flip-flops are still for the most part made in the exact same way as they have been for a long time. Rightfully so, since the flip-flop is pretty much the most basic type of footwear in existence!

Flip-flops were one of the first types of footwear that innovators began experimenting with, flip-flops made from recycled automobile tires, flip-flops made from old carpet, and now flip-flops made from repurposed yoga mats!

Last week we at Common Soles learned that we have been accepted as an official green business by Green America! This means that the Common Soles product, business practices, and processes we employ have been audited by the Green America research team to ensure they meet the established criteria to deem us a green business!

The auditing/screening process checks that we:

We have seen and written about numerous examples of businesses that leverage their influence on the public for the benefit of a social cause. One business which has always stood out from the crowd is The Body Shop. Founded in 1976 by Dame Anita Roddick in England, The Body Shop has always stood for ethical business and been a model organization for giving back and supporting causes which help make the world a better place.

Common Soles is fully in support of The Body Shop's latest initiaitve in aiding ECPAT USA and the Somaly Mam Foundation in an effort to stop the sex trafficking of children and young people.

Today I received a new laptop battery – it’s pretty exciting for me because my current battery only holds a charge for about 5 minutes.  So now I’m back humming 100% with this new battery and able to go about my day in my usual un-tethered manner! But what remains of this re-battery process is my old battery. Pretty much a useless item to me, so what do I do with this item which clearly has some toxic components inside of it? Dell did not provide any instruction for what to do. Ahh!!

So that’s my rant for the day – but it got us thinking about the afterlife of a Common Soles flip-flop. From the beginning we always told customers that they could return their old and worn out Common Soles to us, but since we’re only about a year old it just really hasn’t come up yet. So here it is – official now because it’s being written on our website which in 2010 terms means it might as well be the 10 Commandments.

The 210 Footwear Foundation is all about "shoepeople helping shoepeople". We're down with that! Nice letter from 210 President Peggy Meill.

We get lots of questions on how we maintain and ensure that our footwear factory overseas is providing a quality work environment for all employees. It’s a great question and we’ve written about such related practices previously here in the Sole Blog. But when trolling through some of these earlier posts I realized that we have not specifically laid out our criteria, findings, and notes in one clear and concise post. So here it is!

- Worker pay. The workers at Sarada Indistries, the factory we employ in Vijayawada, India, pays a fair wage to all workers well above the country base line for pay in this industry which I have to tell you is scary low. Unfortunately we do not have direct control over this as we do not own the factory. We have spent significant time there though, and in speaking with workers directly have learned that they are paid well and often it is the best paying job in the area for them!

- Worker conditions. After having spent significant time on the factory floor Rao and I can comfortably describe the factory as: Highly Functional. Much like you would expect a Toyota auto factory except WAY smaller and less high-tech. Everything and everybody has a specific purpose and process they follow. Defining functional means that adequate lighting and safety precautions are in place, each worker has a comfortable space to work within, a breeze and fresh air comes through large open windows, and ceiling fans provide a nice cooling effect in the warm South Indian climate. Hazardous materials are not used in the production of Common Soles footwear, in fact, our products are so simple that most materials and tools used to assemble them can be found in the typical homeowner's garage throughout the US.

Many brands have gotten quite creative with their packaging, offering innovative eco-friendly packaging instead of the classic cardboard box. A few of our favorites are from Timbuk2 and PACT. Timbuk2 has taken it to a whole new level by printing a map of the city of San Francisco on the outside of the plastic bag they ship their bags in. The map is dubbed “a waterproof San Francisco bike map”. Sweet! It’s amazingly detailed, and even has some of the companies favorite points of interest marked off on the map. We applaud this move as it gives a simple shipping bag a useful afterlife.

PACT has gone the full eco-route with their packaging. Claiming that you can toss the packaging in the dirt and it will completely decompose, label and all in less than 45 days. Cool!

For those of you heading to Newport, RI this summer please be sure to stop by and see us at Potter & Co at 172 Thames Street.  Potter & Co. has been offering casual, lifestyle, and functional clothing and accessories for over 100 years to both the locals and tourists of beautiful Newport. Lucky for us, Chafee Emory, Potter & Co's new proprietor (and ripping sailor) took a fancy to our story (and product) and as of today you can get your soles from her as well!

We've been getting the question of what we do with our seconds from many of you so I figured I'd write up a few quick words on the afterlife of a second quality Common Soles flip-flop.

Any seconds, or flip-flops which are made in our factory and don't pass our quality tests are either: 1) disassembled and re-made into new flips, 2) given to whomever is standing there at the moment who may want them..., or 3) donated to Soles 4 Souls (only if they are deemed wearable, with minor cosmetic flaws only) . 

Rao and I strongly believe that all businesses need to incorporate the consideration of environmental health into their business strategy and practices. We have made it a core tenant of the Common Soles business model from the beginning. Since making it public that we were going to be an environmentally conscious business we have made some significant headway. On a product side we have incorporated re-purposed materials into all our flip-flops. Components made from coconut shells and natural woven jute are prime examples. We also do not leverage heavy machinery in our manufacturing. All assembly is done by hand in the factories that make Common Soles. Cool!

StartupNation.com A basic guide titled “9 Steps to Greening your Business” 

Fast Company Some best practices and ideas shared in an article: “50 Ways to Green Your Business”

We are over 50% of the way to completing this initiative which rebuilds the small library and laboratory at the all-girls school in Purchuru, India. This rural school provides education to girls in the region who otherwise would not be able to go to school. Many graduates end up being the first in their family to go to university and/or get jobs in the city.

We are so close to funding this initiative via the sale of the Common Soles Natya and Aiman flip-flops. Help us hit that goal by picking up a pair for yourself or as a gift today! Think Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Graduation present, Wedding party gifts, whatever!

Dave and I have been working the past few months diligently on getting out some new eco-friendly styles that he just blogged about and starting our first direct retail outlet. We opened our first mall cart in “The Parks At Arlington” mall in Dallas, TX just yesterday. Needless to say we are super excited.

Why Dallas you may ask, we just like sunshine in everything we do. Having our own direct retail presence is a great way to connect with our customers and understanding firsthand what they like and don’t about our product’s and initiatives. If you are ever in Dallas area, please take some time to stop by and say hello.  Thanks for your continued support.

Those are the major components of our latest style flip-flop. We just got them in and are thrilled with how they came out. Comfortable, stylish (at least in our opinion!) and responsibly produced from materials sourced local to the factory in which they were assembled. We’re working on dialing in the micro-initiative these flip-flops will be associated with and hope to have it all online shortly.

In the meantime Rao has been busy with our retail program in the SouthWest. If you’re in Dallas be sure to give him a shout. Being able to communicate with our customers in a forum outside the web will be very helpful for us in learning how people buy footwear. Also what folks look for in materials, fit, and styling.

It’s spring time here in Boston, and we’re all out and about enjoying the sun, breeze, and adventure that comes with it. With that I’ve been having some great conversations with friends of mine on their favorite fashions this Spring. Fashions from brands that give a damn, and have built values based business models. Whether it’s incorporating organic and natural materials, giving back to the community, or leveraging responsible manufacturing processes. It’s all good!

(We'll get one out for the guys too.)

PACT Scales Boy Short ($22) 95% Organic Cotton + Give a good % back
NAU Dual Citizen Hoody ($150) Dual Layer Organic Cotton
PrAna Molly Denim Capri ($70) Organic Denim with Stretch
Common Soles Natya ($25) Responsibly Manufactured Flip-Flop (shameless plug..)
GoGaGa Messenger Bag ($118) Values based business that we dig!

Lisa and I were recently traveling the South Island of New Zealand for two glorious weeks. It was absolutely amazing – New Zealand is indeed adventure-land. On several occasions when chatting with folks in NZ we found ourselves telling the tale of what Common Soles is up to. For the most part, everyone responds quite well to our story (or at least we tend to meet very nice people!). They can get into the Common Soles story quite easily, as most everyone appreciates businesses that take on a social bent.

What’s interesting though is where the conversation typically goes after the initial back-and-forth on what Common Soles is and what we are up to.  9 times out of 10 we hear stories of other small social ventures the individual knows of, either through a personal connection, or something they heard about via the media that resonated with them. Folks get incredibly excited to share the stories of these socially responsible organizations. It’s really neat experiencing the energy that is generated during conversations on social ventures. People get really excited about them regardless of their association with the organization, and regardless of whether or not they have even conducted a transaction with that organization!

The Fair Labor Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending sweatshop conditions. We fully support this cause and organization. Being a supporter is one thing, truly understanding he benchmarks they have outlined that constitute good working conditions is slightly more complex. The FLA has assembled a 28 page document that outlines the benchmarks used to determine if a factory is providing good working conditions for their employees. Here’s a link to that .pdf 

These benchmarks cover all the basic elements such as wages, child labor restrictions, sanitary conditions, etc. What they do not cover are environmental practices in operations. We have discussed our efforts in that area in previous blog posts and will have even more on that topic in the future as it is a concern we also strongly believe in.

I just got back from a two week trip to New Zealand. What an incredible country. The best way for me to describe it is: "Lake Tahoe meets Hawaii". It’s that amazing of a place. We toured the South Island and drew a TON of inspiration from the Kiwi culture as well as spoke with dozens of folks who live in flops year round.

During that same time Rao has been focusing efforts on the south-west market of the US. Specifically Texas.  We will have a lot more on that effort shortly.

 I always wanted to be a socially responsible entrepreneur and giving back to the community was a big part of it. That was the theme that got Dave and I together in this venture. The journey in this direction has opened a whole new perspective for us on conscious capitalism and environmental responsibility.  We can’t help but notice and try emulating other businesses and initiatives in this direction. Here are links to some earlier blogs from Dave on some of the businesses we admire

EVA, (Ethylene-vinyl acetate) is some incredibly versatile stuff. It’s the elasticized polymer foam material used in most footwear to add support, structure, and cushioning. It’s incredibly versatile as it can be molded, dyed, cut, and shaped into just about any configuration. It’s incredibly inexpensive compared to the other materials used in footwear such as leather or rubber, and it’s darn easy to get good at working with it!

But it’s not all roses for this wonder material.  EVA doesn’t break-down naturally and so it’s filling landfills across the globe with a product that doesn’t jive with nature. The manufacturing of EVA is a toxic process, and even though EVA scraps and used EVA can be recycled into new EVA – it’s not at all a green process.