ETNIES IS EXPANDING its “Buy A Shoe, Plant a Tree” initiative by teaming up with leading nonprofit Trees for the Future in an effort to reverse Brazil’s deforestation. Through this one- for-one program, the skate shoe company will plant a tree in São Paulo’s Atlantic Rainforest for every purchase of its Jameson 2 and Jameson 2 Eco men’s and kids’ styles and girls’ Caprice Eco and Circe Eco shoes.
This is the latest step in Etnies’ bid to curb global warming: Last year, with help from La Reserva Forest Foundation, the brand planted more than 35,000 trees on the Maleku reserve in Costa Rica. The project also aims to educate local students and native groups on environmental issues while teaching them how to produce seedlings and transplant trees.
“It’s a way to demonstrate to young people that not only can they be environmentally conscious by addressing their own daily activities, but they can make an impact on the environment through a different kind of vote,” says the brand’s skateboarding owner and CEO Pierre-Andre Senizergues, adding: “They can vote with the dollars they spend everyday.”
Etnies will provide retail partners with informational cards, shoe clips and other POS items to help educate consumers about the program. As Senizergues puts it, “To do what we love to do, we need clean air to skate, clean water to surf and we need snow to snowboard. It’s natural that the passion I have for action sports would drive my passion to protect our planet—it’s our only playground.” —L.M.
