Allbirds

Allbirds, Inc. is a New Zealand and American public benefit company that sells footwear and apparel that was co-founded in 2014 by Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. It mostly uses a direct-to-consumer model in conjunction with distribution via select additional stores in addition to select Nordstrom and Dick's Sporting Goods locations.

Allbirds was founded as part of a suite of corporations funded via Kickstarter such as Warby Parker, and has based its corporate identity heavily on its sustainability. Since the 2020s, the company has faced criticism for "greenwashing" after it brought Dwyer v. Allbirds, Inc., a case accusing the company of misleading carbon offsets, to a motion to dismiss. Allbirds went public on 3 November 2021, but began to suffer from poor sales soon after, leading to a reworking of the company's C-Suite from 2022 to 2024. On 8 April 2024, the company received a non-compliance notice from the Nasdaq for performing below $1 for over 30 days straight.

In the cultural sphere, the company's shoes are best known for their minimalist designs; association with environmental, social, and governance principles; and Silicon Valley. During the mid-to-late 2010s, the company became trendy among tech workers in major American cities and was worn by individuals such as Barack Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio.

2014–2020: Founding
Allbirds co-founder Tim Brown got the idea for the company while he was vice captain of the New Zealand football team. He had previously attended business school and used to make leather shoes for friends, but was aware of how uncomfortable the shoes were. In 2014, he received a research grant to engineer a sneaker from the New Zealand wool industry. The grant came during a time of reduced demand for Merino wool due to the increased commercial viability of recycled polypropene and the lack of a singular voice to represent the industry. Brown then launched his idea on Kickstarter, raising US$119,000 2016 in five days. After launching on Kickstarter, Brown teamed up with Joey Zwillinger, a biotech engineer and renewable materials expert who sold algae fuel prior to Allbirds. They began developing their process and officially launched Allbirds in March 2016. The name Allbirds is a reference to New Zealand having almost no native land mammals, being a land of "all birds."

The company received a B Corporation score of 81.9 in 2016, earning it certification. The company was re-evaluated in 2020 and received an 89.4.

The company launched with one product, the Wool Runners casual sneakers. During their first year in business, the company raised US$7.25 million from investors including Maveron, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and other firms. Bloomberg's Jordyn Holman and Matthew Townsend credit articles in well-known publications like Time and The New York Times in 2016 and 2017 respectively with granting the company early publicity. In December 2017, Allbirds sued Steve Madden, alleging that the company's Traveler shoes look nearly identical to its Wool Runners. Similarly, in November 2019, Zwillinger accused Amazon of using the design of one of Allbirds' shoes without authorization.

As of 2017, the company had 50 employees in their headquarters in San Francisco, US; 40 employees at its warehouse in Nashville, US; and 350 contractors in a factory in South Korea. In the end of 2017 the company launched in Australia. In October 2018, the company raised US$50 million in Series C funding, bringing its total valuation to US$1.4 billion. The company also expanded into other footwear, including running shoes and flip flops, which expanded into athleisure in collaboration with Outdoor Voices and Nordstrom. Continuing in May 2020, Allbirds announced a partnership with Adidas.

The company began to offer its shoes to brick and mortar stores in the United States in 2017. The company opened its first store in the United Kingdom on 17 October 2018 in London's Covent Garden. Additionally, it secured US$6,250,000 2019 in funding from Bubble Group during a seed round. Some of the funders include SignalFire Telemetry, BoxGroup, and Nas.

By 2020, the company raised US$100 million in Series E funding, and had 21 retail stores globally. Prior to its initial public offering in 2021, the company raised over US$200 million. Forbes contributor David Trainer believed the company was overvalued at US$2 billion, instead suggesting US$119 million due to market competition and difficulties in business scaling.

2021–present: Public offering
The company went public on the Nasdaq on 3 November 2021 under the ticker symbol BIRD at a price between US$12-US$14. That same year, the company dropped a line claiming to be "the first 'sustainable' IPO" from its listing due to pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A month before its IPO, the company reduced references to "sustainability principles and objectives" by half. The year prior, the company was at a loss of US$25.9 million on a US$219 million revenue, which Zwillinger claimed was in pursuit of a sustainable business model. In this time, the company was leaning further into its brand as sustainable by collaborating with Adidas to create a sneaker "that promises to have almost no carbon footprint" and by focusing on environmental impact in its ads.

By 2022, the company began to decline in annual sales according to a GlobalData consumer panel as the brand became seen as part of a style of 2010s Silicon Valley attire and its shoes' lack of durability became better known. Other brands, such as Atoms and Veja, were claimed to be taking some of Allbirds' market share as early as 2020 in a Wall Street Journal article by Jacob Gallagher. The 2022 release of the Tree Flyer marked the end of a period of experimentation with the company's offerings, including leggings, jackets, and dresses, which were unpopular with its customer-base. The Financial Times ' Lauren Indvik criticised the company's new clothes, such as cardigans and sweaters for being overly simple. In particular, she wrote that "just because a garment is basic doesn't mean it should be without style, and I found the fits and design details uninspiring."

Complaints about the shoes' lack of durability also increased, and a division between the company's co-CEOs over consumer audience visions emerged. Brown believed that younger customers would drive sales, which conflicted with Zwillinger, leading to Zwillinger being named sole CEO, putting Brown as chief innovation officer. The company thereafter returned to a primary focus on sustainable shoes. To recover from the loss in sales and investor confidence, the company also began to sell their products at brick and mortar Nordstrom and Dick's Sporting Goods stores between April and June 2022.

Closing out in 2023, the IPO traded at 10% of its IPO price. The group of companies that Allbirds went public with, including Casper Sleep and Warby Parker, was noted by Bloomberg News ' Olivia Rockeman as all having struggled as public companies. Further writing that "[o]thers remain private, but face slowing growth and few potential buyers. Firms are also abandoning the go-it-alone approach and selling through retailers, including Allbirds getting into REI and Nordstrom."

On 12 March 2024, Zwillinger was replaced by prior Allbirds Chief Operating Officer Joe Vernachio as CEO. Vernachio outlined plans to focus on already-successful products rather than experimenting with new ones, and that the company would rely on its retail partners. Zwillinger remained as a member of the board of directors. Earlier in the year, the company promoted Kelly Olmstead to chief marketing officer and recruited Adrian Nyman as chief design officer. Chief financial officer Mike Bufano stepped down on 9 March 2023, being succeeded by Annie Mitchell after 24 April 2023. That same year on 8 April 2024, the company received a non-compliance notice from the Nasdaq for its share price being valued at $1 for 30 days straight. The company began to downsize plans to open more physical stores in countries like Germany during this time.

Litigation
Allbirds was the subject of a 2017 lawsuit, Dwyer v. Allbirds, Inc., accusing the company of misleading consumers about its sustainability practices. Namely, the plaintiff accused the company of not mentioning the carbon impact of its wool sourcing, which through Higg Material Sustainability Index only measures the impact of individual products rather than the supply chain. The judge dismissed the case in 2022 on the grounds that the company adheres to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, and that depictions of happy sheep in advertising were puffery.

The company was sued by its shareholders in May 2023 amidst a decline in sales for moving from focusing on footwear to other products, which was revealed to have lower core consumer interest. The plaintiffs alleged that this was misleading, leading investors to buy shares at artificially inflated prices, and was therefore securities fraud. The case reached stipulation on 28 May 2024.

In December 2017, Allbirds sued Steve Madden, alleging that the company's Traveler shoes look nearly identical to its Wool Runners. Similarly, in November 2019, Zwillinger accused Amazon's 206 Collective of producing a "look-alike" of the Wool Runners' design for nearly half the price. Unlike the Steve Madden suit, the company did not bring Amazon to court, which Zwillinger called "risky," and referred to Amazon's large legal teams. Later that week, Zwillinger and Brown wrote a Medium article inviting Amazon to use some of its materials, such as those made from sugarcane waste streams, to "jointly make a major dent in the fight against climate change." The case with Amazon was cited as an example of the company's willingness to lose money in the name of sustainability by Sasha Rogelberg.

Sustainability and manufacturing
The company claims to keep its products as eco-friendly as possible, using materials such as merino wool and eucalyptus, and is a certified B Corporation. Other shoe components, such as the laces and insoles, are made from recycled plastic bottles, castor beans, plant starch, and wood pulp, and Tencel. In 2018, shoe manufacturing occurred in Shenzhen, China.

In May 2024, two months after her promotion to director of sustainability, Aileen Lerch promised further transparency and work through Carbonfact. Lerch previously published spreadsheet data detailing the company's sustainability data.

Greenwashing
Numerous sources have criticized the company in light of the Dwyer v. Allbirds, Inc. case for supposed "greenwashing," or presenting as environmentally-friendly for promotional purposes while failing to deliver on sustainable promises. Writing for The University of Kentucky's Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law blog, Abigail Barford claims that while demands for corporate transparency have increased, few standards have been implemented at the governmental level. Barford specifically mentions that environmental, social, and governance guidelines are often used as marketing to secure IPO status, as she alleges Allbirds of doing during and after the Dwyer case.

Legal scholar Ciara Peacock writes about the case in a discussion of American courts' tendencies to grant corporate carbon offsets and credits a high bar to legal criticism, referencing how cases charging corporations with unrealistic usages of carbon offsets like Earth Island Institute v. Coca-Cola and Dwyer overwhelmingly end in motions to dismiss. In Dwyer, Peacock notes a lack of consistency for "where the carbon-neutral calculus ends on the supply chain," allowing corporations to establish and publicize their own environmental boundaries. Fellow legal scholar Valerie J. Peterson labelled Allbirds' presentation of their life cycle assessment as lacking the wool manufacturing portion of the "cradle to grave" analysis.

Public benefit company
After securing independent reviews as a B Corporation, an ESG rating from Sustainalytics, and a Sustainability Principles and Objectives (SPO) Framework analysis from ISS ESG, Allbirds filed for S-1 registration with the SEC. Uniquely in IPO law, Allbirds was subject to SEC review for this, whereas other bonds used to fund environmentally safe projects do not have to. Alexander Coley analyzes this dynamic as both a weakness and a strength of the securities regulation industry, with Amanda Schwaben explicitly tying Allbirds' projection as a public benefit company as a means of gathering investment with dubious returns.

Silicon Valley
According to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Allbirds initially gained popularity among tech industry professionals, particularly in Silicon Valley. The brand's minimalist, logo-free design and eco-friendly wool fabric resonated with the tech community, leading to popular adoption of Allbirds as a sort of unofficial uniform among American "tech bros." A New Yorker article by Rachel Syme further claimed that the shoes, "cannot really be categorized as ugly footwear, because the idea behind them is not proud unstylishness but technical perfection," linking it to a trend towards comfortwear in professional jobs, namely in technology, as well as a form of conspicuous consumption. Similarly, New York Times critic Jon Caramanica criticized the shoes for being "studiously unstylish," drawing a connection between the shoes' utility and the occupations of their wearers.

Corporate identity
Allbirds maintains a corporate identity around its sustainability strategies, which numerous observers have credited the company with. Leveraging the argument that fashion is a necessarily discursive institution and that marketing is the narrowing of acceptable products in consumers' minds, journalism professor Myles Ethan Lascity identified Allbirds as sharing a frame with Japanese casual fashion company Uniqlo. Uniqlo, Lascity argues, promotes itself as a technology brand rather than a clothing company. In Allbirds' case, the company does not frame itself primarily as a shoe brand, but instead as a sustainability brand, which the founders have sustained. To this end, the company frontloads its commitments to observers on their websites and storefronts prior to their products.

Athletic usage
Compared to traditional athletic shoes, Allbirds use "SweetFoam" instead of rubber, which are a source of contention for the shoes athletic performance. Runner's World 's Jeff Dengate wrote two reviews of the Tree Dasher 2 and Tree Flyer in 2022 and 2023, complimenting the shoes' environmental goals and casual fit, but criticizing the soles, grip, and weight of the shoes. Of the Dasher 2, Dengate writes that the shoes were too heavy, even with a 0.3 ounce reduction from the Dasher. The Tree Flyer was "slightly lighter and bouncier than the Dasher 2, thanks to a new foam made from castor bean oil," supposedly improving its usability for running. Still, Dengate found the shoes' cushioning and heel-stitching to be worse than traditional running shoes.

Popular culture
In 2018, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gifted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull a pair of Allbirds sneakers during a state visit to Australia. After their announcement in 2018, actor Leonardo DiCaprio pledged investment in the company's Zeffers sandals.

Former United States President Barack Obama was documented wearing the shoes by fashion magazines at numerous occasions. A 2019 article in Esquire made positive notice of him wearing a pair at a basketball game. In 2020, an article in men's magazine GQ by Cam Wolf criticized his wearing them while recording a podcast as "Zoom Formal."