How this Mumbai-based start-up refurbishes old shoes into trendy footwear

If you have the habit of throwing or giving away your old pair of shoes, because either you have outgrown them or they are torn, you may want to consider donating them instead and give someone an easy walk. 

When they were athletes, 24-year-old Shriyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami ran hundreds of kilometres. Consequently, they ran through at least three to four pairs of sport shoes every year. While the soles of those shoes would be in good condition, the shoe sides tore within months. This prompted them to ponder if they could find some use for the intact soles of these quality sport shoes. As they dug deeper, they discovered the idea of refurbishing them into trendy slippers. Thus was born GreenSole — Step towards sustainability — in 2013.

Dhami and Bhandari took baby steps as they put up a box at Priyadarshini Park, in Mumbai — where the two had met during athletic practice and training under a coach — to collect discarded shoes. Their business idea generated interest soon. And, in a month, they made it to the top 30 innovators by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad. The money won through that and other design and sustainability competitions was then invested into starting the social venture.

Worldwide every year, more than 35,00,00,000 pairs of shoes are discarded, while as per the recent report by the World Health Organisation, 1.5 billion people are infected by diseases that could be prevented by wearing proper footwear. While manufacturing a pair of shoes involves a total of assembling upto 65 discrete parts in 360 steps, which generates 30 lbs of emissions; equivalent to leaving a 100-watt bulb burning for a week. 

Founders opf GreenSole Shriyans Bhandari (left) and Ramesh Dhami

The purpose of GreenSole was to create a self-sustaining infrastructure that facilitates the provision of the basic necessity of footwear to everyone by refurbishing discarded shoes with zero carbon footprint. “Initially, we thought to reuse those shoes for personal use. But the idea grew into a social business venture and we decided to help underprivileged children by providing them with refurbished shoes,” says Bhandari, who did his Master’s in entrepreneurship from the US before returning to India and setting up GreenSole. He is the chief executive officer and co-founder of the company.

How does GreenSole work? With collection centres spread across the country, the volunteers at the organisation collect torn shoes from donors which are then sent to the manufacturing unit. Once it reaches the unit, the team washes and disassembles them to separate the soles and uppers. They cut the soles according to the required sizes, and use them to make the base of the slippers. The uppers are used to make slipper straps and the laces used to pack the footwear for donation. It is this idea along with their social awareness that made saw Bhandari and Dhami make it to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 — Asia — Social Entrepreneurs 2018.

refurbished designer slippers sold on the website

In 2017, GreenSole upcycled 35,000 pairs of shoes and has revised its target to 70,000 this year. The scaling-up has also increased its revenues from Rs 2 million in 2015-16 toRs7.1 million last fiscal. The company has till date donated over 130,000 pairs of slippers in 155 states across 400 schools. With a growth that doubled year-on-year, the company’s turnover saw a triple growth this year and currently stands at Rs 30 million. 

The company has now taken the ecommerce route as well by selling their refurbished products on their own website as well as partnered through sites like Amazon. Forty per cent of their revenue comes from corporate CSR programmes, 30 per cent recycling as a service, and the rest is retail. “We plan to reverse the trend and hope our sales from retail will help us contribute to CSR,” says Bhandari. 

Donors can send their shoes via courier or drop in at the collection centres. The company accepts all kinds of footwear except children’s shoes and shoes/sandals with heels. “We aim to ensure that no under-served individual is barefoot in the World by 2023,” says Bhandari.