September 26, 2025 • 45 mins
Learn more about: Vivobarefoot
What if the shoes you've been wearing your whole life are actually hurting your feet? That's the startling revelation at the heart of our conversation with Galahad Clark, seventh-generation shoemaker and co-founder of Vivobarefoot.
Coming from a family with 200 years of shoemaking history, Clark's journey took an unexpected turn when he discovered that conventional footwear actually weakens our feet and disconnects us from nature. "The big shoe industry is genuinely one of the least sustainable industries in the world," he explains. "It's devastating for both planetary and human health." This realization led him to create Vivobarefoot, a company dedicated to making shoes that allow feet to function naturally.
The concept is surprisingly simple yet revolutionary: our feet evolved over millions of years to work perfectly without shoes. When we encase them in rigid, padded footwear with heels, arch supports, and narrow toe boxes, we're actually causing long-term harm. As Clark puts it, "Most people in the West wearing those cookie-cutter shoes have deformed, weak feet because of the shoes." These weakened feet then create problems in other areas of the body, like the knees, hips, and back.
Clark points out that indigenous cultures worldwide created perfect barefoot footwear for thousands of years, crafting shoes person by person, foot by foot from local sustainable materials. Now, through their VivoBiome system, the company is using AI, mobile scanning, and local 3D printing to return to this personalized approach while minimizing environmental impact.
While the journey hasn't been without challenges, Clark's vision extends beyond just better footwear. It's about reconnecting humans with nature, starting literally from the ground up. "When you wear barefoot shoes or less shoes and you put your feet on the earth, you psychologically can't help but believe that living in local communities and local food systems is the right path for humans."
Ready to reconsider the relationship between your feet and the earth beneath them? Listen now and take the first step toward stronger, healthier feet and a more sustainable future.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Four Worlds podcast from Tomorrow's
World.
Today, we're diving into thelatest in tech, science and
sustainability, from nature'smysteries and the world of
inspiration to the hands-oncrafts of creation, the bold
breakthroughs of innovation andthe scaled-up wonders of
production.
This is your ticket to thestories shaping tomorrow.
(00:22):
Welcome back, everyone, toanother episode of the Four
Worlds podcast.
Today we're talking aboutsustainability in the shoe
industry.
Joining us for that is GalahadClark, one of the co-founders at
Vivo Barefoot.
Galahad, I appreciate your time, especially all the way over in
the UK.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
How are you Wonderful to be here and connected to
Pittsburgh from sunny Somerset.
We're just finishing our summerholidays here.
I know all you lot have beenback to school already for 10
days or so, but we don't go backto school here until September.
So I'm just counting down thedays that my kids go back to
school on Monday and the realholidays start then.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Right, right, I think the biggest thing, a part of
that you said the sunny Somerset.
It's sunny here in Pittsburgh,so two rarities, I think, to
start off the podcast.
Correct, all right, galahad,let's get into it.
For people who don't know whoViva Barefoot is and what they
do, I'd love to hear a littlebit more about that and just
(01:25):
give the audience a little bitof insight of what you do and
what exactly your product is.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So Vivo Barefoot literally means live barefoot,
and so the company pretty muchdoes what it says on the tin,
where we enable people to livebarefoot in, no matter what
they're doing, how they're doingit, where they're doing it
where they're doing it.
We're a footwear company, so wewe make footwear, but we make
footwear that is as close tobarefoot as possible, and we
(01:53):
make a whole wide range offootwear from kids, adults, from
hiking to gym to everydaylifestyle shoes.
So no matter kind of whatyou're doing, how you're doing
it, you can always experiencethat in pure barefoot bliss with
Vivo Barefoot.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And we will dive deep into this.
But I mentioned bringingsustainability to the footwear
industry.
Give a little bit of backgroundhow exactly you do that and how
you're able to basically make aproduct that feels like you're
barefoot.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, so I come from a long line of shoemakers, seven
generations of shoemakers.
Funny enough, in about threeweeks time we're celebrating the
200 year anniversary of ourfamily making shoes in Somerset
making shoes in Somerset.
And actually the very firstshoe they ever made in 1825 was
(02:50):
a pretty good barefoot sheepskinslipper.
So in many ways what we'redoing now is kind of just
returning back to the beginning,but from a sustainability.
So I was kind of in the shoeindustry, I was born into the
shoe industry and for one reasonor another I then ended up in
the shoe industry afteruniversity.
Desperately didn't want to gointo the shoe industry and from
one reason or another I thenended up in the shoe industry
after university.
Desperately didn't want to gointo the shoe industry in many
ways, but it was.
(03:11):
I was actually studying inamerica and it was in america
that I got dragged into theindustry via a long story to do
with the wu-tang clan, but whatyou know.
It was a time whensustainability and
sustainability and design was amuch more important topic than
probably, sadly, is today inmany ways.
And there's an Americanprofessor called John Ehrenfeld
(03:33):
who wrote a book calledSustainability products and
filling the world up with morestuff is that a product should
help us connect more with nature, make us feel more human,
improve the human condition, askimportant environmental or
(03:54):
ethical questions.
And I was already aware ofbarefoot shoes at this time and
we'd already sort of startedplaying around with making
barefoot prototypes and thingsand the concept of barefoot, but
I realized that the only shoesthat actually connect humans
more to nature and actually havea sort of positive impact on
human health were barefoot shoes.
(04:14):
So in many ways I came tobarefoot through sustainability
thinking.
So you know, my starting pointwas the most sustainable shoes
in the world are barefoot shoesby definition.
And you know, in many ways thebeginning of wisdom is the
definition of terms andeverybody has slightly different
definitions of whatsustainability is.
(04:35):
But I, like John Ehrenfeldt,and he said, you know, that all
of life on Earth should be ableto flourish, and that for me is
a great flourishing, is a greatword and a great definition of
sustainability.
And it was through his work andthrough his thinking that
actually, you know, I came torealize that the most
sustainable shoemaking in theworld is barefoot shoemaking.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And you say that his definition of sustainability
inspired you to do what you donow.
What's your definition ofsustainability inspired you to
do what you do now?
What's your definition ofsustainability after being in
this industry for so long andcreating this product?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
well, it's it's funny because the you know, the
sustainability in many ways gotsort of replaced by regenerative
and and there's all thesebuzzwords in in this world that
you know some people sayrestorative, and you know, like
the, if you were to imagine likea spectrum, and the shoe
industry is genuinely one of theleast sustainable industries in
(05:36):
the world.
On many levels it's adevastating industry for both
planetary and human health.
It's fundamentally asubtractive industry where it's
taking, you know, resources fromthe earth and then also,
frankly, taking health fromhumans, both in the polluting
activities in the making anddistributing of shoes, but then
(05:58):
also literally in the impact ithas on the user of most of what
I call big shoe shoes right andthen you know.
So if you go from subtractiveand you go up the spectrum, you
know, arguably sustainability isjust sort of net zero, it's.
It's sort of not positive, notnegative, it's sustainable.
And then you might get torestorative, which is maybe net
(06:22):
positive, where you're doingmore good than you are doing
harm.
But then I like the definitionof regenerative, which is means
you know we're actually aligningto living systems, you're
actually aligning to nature andyou're following nature's
wisdoms rather than kind ofimposing oneself on nature.
You know a lot ofsustainability thinking and
(06:43):
rhetoric out there is abouthumans saving the world and you
know saving nature.
But obviously the world isgoing to be more than fine
without humans.
In fact it would be a lotbetter without humans.
So the best things humans cando to save themselves is just
align themselves and ultimatelyfollow nature and natural
systems, rather than the otherway around.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Right and to that point.
You know, believing thatconventional shoes, you know,
harm both our bodies and theenvironment.
When did you first realize that, and how did that steer your
vision?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean you'd be shocked how few people in the
shoe industry genuinelyunderstand human biomechanics,
the way the body moves and theforces on those bodies, anatomy
of the foot and the way the footis designed and supposed to
function.
You know you hear so many timesin the shoe industry veterans
(07:39):
of the shoe industry when yousort of say, well, why do you do
it like that?
Well, why, why, why and thenand, and and.
In the end they go well, butthat's just the way we've always
done it and you know it feelsthat way in a lot of industries.
And so I was lucky enough, Ithink you know, by happenstance,
to a childhood friend of minewho was really into postural
alignment therapy.
(07:59):
He kept on getting injured as atennis player and his father
was an Alexander Techniqueteacher and Alexander Technique
is all about aligning yourposture.
It's used a lot by actors andmusicians and also sports people
, and he realized that trainers,anything with a heel and
(08:21):
anything that was conscriptinghis foot was actually making
postural alignment verydifficult.
He was a student at the RoyalCollege.
He was a sort of designer andinnovator and, to cut a long
story short, he got a pair ofNike shoes.
He sliced off the sole of theshoes and stitched a tennis
racket cover on the bottom.
And so he made what looked likea kind of cool pair of Nike
(08:42):
shoes, but with none of theunderfoot technology, and made
it a bit wider.
And he brought it to me andjust said, look, this is the way
shoes should be made, and Iinstinctively loved the idea.
And then so the education thenstarted with him and started
with postural alignment thinking.
And then there was a guy calledlee saxby who had been studying
(09:04):
with a guy called dr romanoff,who had been studying with a guy
called Dr Romanoff who's basedin America, based in, I think,
florida, and he was then alsoinfluencing a guy called Dan
Lieberman at Harvard Universityin the evolutionary biology lab.
So there were, and then ChrisMcDougall kind of pulled
together a lot of these storiesin the seminal book born to run,
which came out in about 2009 10I think and so there's a
(09:27):
confluence of educators and andscience and practitioners that
suddenly, all you know, I waslucky enough to be surrounded by
and, frankly, to be able tostudy with them and learn from
them, and so that that is whatyou know many ways kind of
started that what I call firstbarefoot revolution.
(09:48):
You know, v-brand five fingerswere kind of at the heart of all
of that, and that all happenedaround that time 2010, 2011 and
and as I started to learn moreand more, more about it and as I
started to wear barefoot shoesmore and more, the circles of
theory and practice got biggerand bigger and one thing led to
another and in 2012 we droppedeverything else we were doing.
(10:10):
We were involved in some othershoe businesses that's my cousin
and I, asher and just kind ofwent all in on barefoot shoes
because we sort of realized thatthis is really the only way to
make not only sustainable shoes,but the only way to make shoes
that actually have any chance ofbeing regenerative or be
positive for people and planet.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, and a big part of that is the process of 3D
printing this footwear.
At what point did you see thatpotential, just reimagining
footwear design in productionthrough 3D printing?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah.
So 3D printing was being usedin the shoe industry quite a lot
for prototyping and justquickly imagining new shoes, and
so you know, and then off theback of that, you know,
obviously people were kind ofwell, wouldn't it be amazing if
we could 3D print shoes?
So that was a sort of idea thatwas bubbling around in the shoe
(11:06):
industry anyway to some degree.
But through Barefoot, and oneof the other avenues that the
barefoot adventures opened upwas, you know, we realized not
only is sustainable shoemakingbarefoot shoemaking, but
actually all indigenousshoemaking is barefoot
shoemaking.
And when I say indigenousshoemaking I just mean people,
(11:27):
you know, who effectively livefree, living free, people who
effectively live free let's say,agricultural revolutionary
times, no matter where they arein the world.
So humans made footwear becauseour feet are very sensitive and
have lots of nerve endings, andso when we started to do the
running hunting in Africa, wemade sandals as one of the first
(11:49):
tools that Homo sapiens, thetool maker, ever made.
And of course they were perfectbarefoot sandals and they
enabled the early humans to beable to run down an antelope for
eight hours across the hotbaked plains of the African
savannah with lots of camelthorns, and we needed those
sandals or protect us from theheat and from the puncture,
(12:13):
protection from the sharp thornsin africa.
And then, as that small groupof humans, left africa and
started to cross the mountainsand cross the deserts and we
made shoes wherever we went.
But we made shoes person byperson, foot by, from the local
animal skins.
So you know, the first peoplesin Europe and America would have
(12:35):
made bison skin moccasins anddeer skin moccasins.
The first peoples up in theArctic made reindeer skin
moccasins and the subcontinentit was buffalo sandals.
The people that lived in thejungles and the forests made
woven shoes out of differentplants.
They used lactahevia rubber andmade the early molded shoes.
(12:59):
And all those shoes were perfectbarefoot shoes and they were
all made person by person, footby foot, from the local relevant
, sustainable materials, if youuse that slightly awful word
again.
And what we realized with 3Dprinting was you know you could
go back to a shoe industry whereyou know you only made shoes
(13:22):
person by person, foot by footagain, rather than in these big
Asian subtractive supply chainswhere big factories are doing
cookie cutter shoes in you knownot that many different sizes.
You know maybe 10, 12 adultsizes across men's and women's,
only five or six sizes in eachgender.
(13:45):
And you know, by definition,those cookie cutter shoes will
not fit most people because thefoot shape is such that you know
when you cookie cut a size andyou force all of the size 10s
into a size 10, by definition,only about 30% of people that
(14:07):
are size 10 actually fit a size10.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Right, yeah, that's when you see all these different
brands.
Oh I'm, I'm nine and a half inso-and-so brand, but I'm a 10 in
this brand.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's all over the place and I couldn't agree more
and the reason is because feetare all over the place, the
width of the width of people'sfeet, the arch height, bridge
height, all the volumes, all the, all the shapes very, very
different, and and so what wequickly realized was that 3d
printing gives us theopportunity to get away from
mass manufactured shoes thatdon't fit people and are
(14:44):
fundamentally unsustainable onmany levels and they literally
deform people's feet.
Most people in the West wearingthose cookie cutter shoes have
deformed weak feet because ofthe shoes.
And 3D printing gives theopportunity to go back to
actually making shoes for peoplethat really fit and allow the
foot to be strong, natural andhealthy and if you've got a
(15:04):
strong, natural, healthy foot,the rest of your body works
tremendously better.
If you've got a weak, deformedfoot, you pay for that up the
kinetic thing, you pay for it inyour knees and your hips and
your back, you know.
And so 3d printing became.
So we we obviously do makeshoes as beaver barefoot in
those long supply chains and wedo make size shoes.
(15:27):
So ours are relatively betterbecause they're relatively wider
and they're relatively moreflexible.
But we realized that theultimate expression of our
mission, which is to reconnectpeople with nature, starting
with their feet, and reconnectwith their natural potential,
would be to actually be able tomake shoes person by person,
(15:47):
foot by foot, again, the sameway all humans had footwear made
for the first 90,000 years ofexistence.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, just make people running around the world.
Yeah, absolutely Completelyunderstand what you mean and,
taking all of that intoconsideration, wanting to get
back to making shoes person byperson.
You have that inspiration, youhave that idea and then, when
you start that creation processfor these shoes and for the
footwear, what were some ofthose challenges and some of
(16:20):
those setbacks as you got intothat creation process?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, it's interesting because, like we
said in the beginning, when youstart asking people in the
footwear industry, why are youdoing like this, why are you
doing like that, why, why, why,why, why, and you start saying,
well, you know, you don't.
You know, any kind of heel isthrowing off natural postural
alignment.
Any kind of height restrictiveshape is not allowing the foot
(16:46):
to splay and contract as as itmight do.
Any arch support is ultimatelyweakening the arch because it's
acting like a splint.
Any kind of toe spring isrendering the big toe, the great
toe, ineffective.
Why, why, why, you know, why dotoddler's shoes look like feet
and why do six-year-old shoeslook like bananas?
(17:07):
And the answer was always well,I've always done it, and and
and.
So when we started saying, well, actually, there's a different
way, and and, all this paddingand all this support and
structures and the footwearindustry is full of all this
kind of underfoot technology youmust have a, you know, a shank
which is a stiff supportivestructure between the forefoot
(17:29):
and the rear foot.
You must have arch support, youmust have toe spring, etc.
Etc.
And you know the.
The shapes are all kind ofingrained in fashion culture.
So it was read huge challenges,just, and we were young,
obviously, and and naive, and sothe experienced owners and
experts in the footwear industrykept on telling us we were
(17:51):
wrong, wrong, wrong.
So, aside from just all thoseobvious challenges of saying,
well, you know, we don't believein any of these bogus rules
that the footwear industry hasset up.
You know, actually, when it cameto making shoes that are
fundamentally a lot thinner,softer, more flexible than
normal shoes, it's relativelyeasy to make a thick, stiff
(18:13):
thing compared to a soft, floppything.
Sure, especially when you're,you know, and the problem with
footwear is you're sticking asole which needs to be abrasion
resistant and durable and longlasting to an upper which needs
to be soft and flexible andcomfortable.
So you've sort of got twocompeting forces of materials
(18:34):
fundamentally.
And then if you increase theflexibility and you increase the
wear and you reduce all thethicknesses and increase the
softness, you get a bigshoe-making challenge basically.
So they look like simple shoesto make but in reality they're
much harder to make.
So the softer a shoe is, theharder it is to make.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
And when you're doing all of that again, keeping all
of that in mind, you're finallymaking and producing this shoe.
You're using some materialsthat fit that sustainable
definition.
What are those materials thatyou're using to 3D print these
shoes?
How does that work?
Some that's biodegradable.
How do you manage to pull thatoff?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, I mean pulling it off would be an incorrect
thing to say.
We're still on the journey oftrying to figure it out Right?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, more in that prototype.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, so the starting point is that the world makes
24 billion pairs of shoes everyyear and nearly every single one
of those shoes is made withpolluting materials.
So nearly all the foams andplastics come from the
petrochemical industry.
Nearly all the leather ispanned with heavy metals, which
(19:48):
is terribly carcinogenic, pannedwith heavy metals, which is
terribly carcinogenic.
All the glues and the threadsand you know various bits of
hardware that you find infootwear also, you know,
terribly polluting.
All the waterproof microplastictype treatments are.
All are all problematic andnearly all shoes, like we said,
don't really fit humans and andthen they nearly all end up in
(20:09):
landfill, which is kind of theelephant in the room that
there's no real end-of-lifesolution in the footwear
industry.
Some companies have started tooffer solutions and becoming
more of a thing.
So the starting point is ishorrific.
So you kind of, and we make awide variety of shoes.
So when you start, let's say,with leather, so rather than you
(20:30):
know the worst case scenario,and actually you know a lot of
the big shoe industry got intotrouble for with where where the
leather come is a is abyproduct of the agricultural
industry and so let's say, a lotof the cattle industry now has
been found guilty of choppingdown amazon rainforest to build
big cattle farms, you know, andthen using loads of bloody
(20:52):
hormones and drugs to rear thecattle, and then the shoe
industry uses the leather fromthose cattle farms.
And you know the bigagriculture.
So that's the problem.
So what's the solution?
So can we find leather fromsmall, sustainable farmers who
(21:12):
are not using lots of terribledrugs and cutting down virgin
rainforests to raise theiranimals, and so what we call
wild hide?
And so we source the leathervery specifically from
small-holding farmers that theanimals live a decent life and
that the skins are a bit moreirregular and they've got a bit
(21:34):
more markings on them becausethe animals are allowed to roam
around in nature, etc.
So that's like one example ofmaybe 50 examples taking an
existing material in the shoeindustry and finding an
alternative, exactly, and that'swith the cottons and the hemp,
and then the foams and the, youknow, and then the all of the
(21:56):
chemical rubbers to the actualnatural rubbers, to the, and.
And look there's, there's lotsof wonderful innovation
happening all across the peaksand going from petrochemical
plastics to plant-based plasticsand and so on and so forth.
And the average shoe company,let's say, of any kind of size.
We make nearly 2 million pairsof shoes a year and we use
(22:18):
literally nearly 1,000components across all the shoes
we make, and we're a relativelysmall shoe company in the grand
scheme of things.
So when you get up to the likesof Nike, it will be probably 10
, different components andsupply, you know.
So there is a lot ofsustainable innovation happening
in the material supply chain.
(22:40):
But you know, you've got to.
You know, you almost just gotto pick them off one by one, bit
by bit.
And the trade-off betweensomething that's proven
long-lasting, durable, fantasticabrasion resistance to
something that is natural andbiodegradable by definition,
that's a tough trade-off.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, there's a lot of elements that go into finding
a circular life cycle forshoots.
It's something that maybepeople don't think about.
And tell me about your approachand speak a little bit about
the BioSurf Flex material, howall of that is just kind of
helping you work towards, maybethat circular lifestyle for
(23:24):
footwear.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So two approaches natural and what we call
polycircular.
And there's the biodegradable,so from nature, back to nature,
using natural materials.
And there's a biodegradable, sofrom nature, back to nature,
using natural materials that cangenuinely be biodegraded one
approach.
And then the other approach ispolycircular shoes that are
ultimately made from syntheticmaterials, ideally coming from
plant sources rather thanpetrochemical sources, that can
(23:47):
then be genuinely recycled.
So we work on those twostrategies effectively and both
ultimately trying to be circular.
The obvious challenge withnatural, like we just said, is
durability, especially inperformance shoes and weight and
water ricking and things,although obviously as we go, you
(24:11):
know materials like wool, thatthere is no synthetic material
in the world that comes close tothe amazing qualities of wool,
for example, and frankly thesame for leather.
And then on the polycircularside, and the material you
mentioned is a plastic that canultimately be truly recycled in
(24:33):
a chemical recycling way, andactually there's a number of the
big shoe companies are tryingto figure this out Right.
It's proving to be tremendouslymore difficult than anybody
kind of imagined five years ago,because the problem is in the
wear, in heat, the, the plasticskeep slightly altering and so
(24:55):
when you come to take back theshoes.
What maybe started off as apure set of polymers that in
theory could then be recycledback into that pure set of
polymers, they've slightlyaltered in in the making, in the
treatment, the wearing.
When the glue then meets thetwo different polymers, that
then sets off another littlechemical reaction.
And so the challenge of beingable to genuinely recycle what
(25:19):
becomes impure polymers, to getit back to the same grade as
plastic, is really difficult.
At the moment, all recycling isbasically downcycling.
So you're taking a fleece andit turns into, you know, a
rubbish bin and then turns intoa playground.
But to get a plastic bottlethat truly can go back to being
a plastic bottle is is somethingthat's, you know where
(25:42):
literally billions of dollarsare being spent on trying to
figure that out.
And it's not just the actualchemistry of being able to get
it back to food grade plastic,it's also just it's chemistry of
being able to get it back tofood-grade plastic.
It's also the cultural systemsand the societal systems to get
people to actually engage in therecycling schemes.
And you know, I think glassbottles, for example, which
(26:03):
you'd think is the simplestthing to recycle in the world,
and it's something like only 25or 30 percent of glass bottles
actually get recycled, wow,whereas glass is, you know, in
theory a perfectly circularmaterial.
But you know, the big problemthe glass industry has is just
getting people to, bloody well,send the glass back.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head right
there.
Just, I mean, how manycommunities just don't even
offer recycling or makerecycling extremely difficult?
I've lived in places where,instead of putting out a
recycling bin, you have to takeit to a site.
And, let's be honest, whatpercentage of people are taking
(26:44):
their time out of their day?
It's true, it really is youknow, a minority yeah right,
exactly it's.
It's a very small amount.
So getting there and justtalking about making an unpure
polymer back into pure plasticis from my writing and from some
of those stories that I havedone has been one of the biggest
(27:05):
challenge of trying to find acircular plastic or a plastic
that is truly recyclable.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
As you know, there's a huge amount of investment.
There's wonderful companiesreally trying really hard,
multiple big companies all overthe world investing a lot of
time, money and effort intotrying to figure this out.
If you'd have asked me 10 yearsago, I'd have said yeah, we're
five years away from this thingbeing nailed, but 10 years later
(27:35):
it kind of feels like we'restill at stage one.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Right, it's one of those things that just always
feels like it's five years away.
That's a great point, likeright now, 10 years ago you
thought it.
Right now you think like, okay,we're five years away, we'll
figure it out at some point.
It's all really good points andone of the kind of switching it
up a little bit here.
One of the things that we wereinterested in is your Vivo Biome
(27:59):
system.
Just tell the audience a littlebit about that how you meld AI,
mobile scanning and local 3Dprinting into building a custom
circular product.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, so Vivo Viome is the epitome of the Vivo
mission.
It's sort of the ultimatefuture of the way we love to see
the shoe industry go.
We mentioned it earlier.
It was ultimately going back tohumans being able to make
personalized shoes forthemselves, person by person,
foot by foot again, so usingmodern technology.
(28:32):
And in reality, obviously we'renot going to go back to a world
where we all go to the localcobbler and stand on a bison
skin and they carefully measurearound the skin and make a
beautiful pair of moccasins toour preferences, with our tribal
colors kind of stitched intothe uppers and some nice beading
around them.
But you know, I guess thatmight happen more and more.
(28:55):
But in lieu of that, like whateverybody does now is they walk
around effectively with ascanning technology in their
pocket, and so it's not perfectyet and and and not all new
phones have it, but, butbasically, before long, mobile
phones will be able to prettyaccurately scan your feet.
(29:15):
So with a scan, we can takethat scan and then we can create
, you know, and with you know,various algorithms and AI
learning.
We can take that scan and thencreate a framework for you to
then be able to interact with adigital program to choose the
type of footwear you'd like youcan personalize it to.
(29:38):
Do you want more grip, lessgrip?
Do you want you know yourgirlfriend's name printed on the
bottom?
Do you want a picture of yourfavorite comic book hero?
Put it down the side?
You can kind of do anythingright and and then so you know,
as I said earlier, there's onething being able to print one
layer in one material, butobviously a lot of footwear
(30:00):
needs two different densities,one for the sole and one for the
upper, and, as you can imagine,there's lots of exciting 3d
printing technologies that arefiguring out both options.
So at the moment, we can doreally good sandals, we can do
really good water shoes and wecan do soles that we then can
stick onto a sock that we callwhat we call hybrid, but still
(30:22):
ultimately sort of personalizedand bespoke to the user.
So you know, our vision is thatbefore long, the days of just
going and buying cookie cuttershoes that don't fit you will be
over and when people startexperiencing shoes that truly
fit them, truly allow their feetto be strong, natural and
(30:43):
healthy and connected to theearth, and they can pretty much
choose, you know, whatever stylethey want and it be quite
unique to them.
Yeah Is where we think it willgo.
And you know, again, with 3Dprinting, you know, I think 10
years ago people were kind ofgoing in five years' time,
everything's going to be 3Dprinted.
You know, 10 years later it'sgoing to be rather slower than
(31:06):
people thought, right, and nowwe're saying five years' time
everything's going to be 3Dprinted.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, it's kind of the same argument.
It's always that, five yearsdown the road.
And to that point, how do youforesee, let's say, ai and
mobile scanning, transformingboth, like you mentioned, the
personalization andsustainability when you touched
on it a little bit?
But I'd like to hear yourpersonal.
You're doing it every day, sowhere do you see that kind of
(31:34):
happening down the line?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
More and more companies are joining the market
.
More and more human ingenuityis going into figuring out the
3D scanners.
More and more human figuringout the polymers, especially the
sustainable biodegradablepolymers.
Amazing companies reallyfiguring out plant-based
biodegradable polymers.
That you know kind of, becauseobviously you know we don't want
(31:57):
to just fill the world up withmore microplastics and what is
an exciting technology that willimprove health and function but
in you know, there's kind of nopoint if it's totally toxic.
So you know we and we see thathappening all over the world and
and you know we're not quite atmore's law in terms of 3d
(32:17):
printing and and scanning yet.
But you know, like I said, thephones, that the technology is
in some phones now.
It will soon be in all phones.
Right, it will be.
It's slightly imprecise now.
It will get more precise andthat is pretty essential to the
whole thing really working foreverybody.
So right now that we needphysical offline scanners to be
(32:40):
able to get it precise enough toreally make a perfect pair of
bespoke shoes for you, the phonecan can get us pretty close,
but that will improve.
We see, in the polymers we justsaw a new innovation literally
in the last month, of a verylightweight, foamed 3D printed
material that also hasbiodegradable qualities, that
(33:02):
just provides a kind of softnessand a flexibility and comfort
that has never been seen beforein 3D printing and so on and so
forth.
Right, and then you know, beingable to 3D print the upper
materials and make them soft andbreathable and flexible enough
but also weather resistant.
All the pieces are starting tocome together.
(33:23):
You know the lovely thing aboutat least from our point of view
.
You know, this whole thingabout underfoot technology and
funny shapes in the footwearindustry is a kind of modern
phenomenon, and what 3D printingwill allow us to do is go back
to making shoes that aregenuinely for your feet, that
(33:43):
feel absolutely.
You know there's nothing betterthan walking barefoot.
You know, I think there's avery there are a few people that
say they prefer shoes, but Ithink there's not many kids that
start off and those are mainlyadults that are just used to
wearing shoes and their feethave gotten weak and they can't
be bothered to do the transitionback to strong, healthy feet.
But there's not many kids inthe world that don't prefer to
(34:07):
run around barefoot.
You're right, bad thing, and aslong as you never deform and
weaken a kid's foot.
That sort of starting pointwill always be there.
So humans are walking around inpointy-heeled shoes because of
horse riding.
We made pointy-heeled shoes togo into stirrups for horse
(34:29):
riding and being able to fighteach other on horses.
To have a horse was a highstatus, aristocratic thing.
So to have horse riding shoeswas a high status thing to have.
So everybody wanted to havehigh status heel pointy shoes.
But we're kind of over fightingeach other on horses now and you
know, just you know, and andand actually what happened with
(34:52):
Nike was they started off makingreally good barefoot shoes, but
they got in a bunch of but whenthey everyone started running
in their black barefoot shoes,people were getting injured and
the doctors came in and saidwell, if you want to make shoes
that people can immediately kindof go running in, you need to
make them like their work shoes,so you need to make them pointy
and heel.
Running in, you need to makethem like their work shoes, so
(35:13):
you need to make them pointy andheel.
So nike put in the heel stack,yeah, with all the bloody air
bubbles, and started to make theshoot the toes more pointy and
raised.
And so you know, they madetheir shoes like people's feet
were because of the shoes.
So all the new technology in theshoe industry is there to solve
the problems caused by shoesitself.
(35:35):
It's a terrible shoe matrix andyou know our job and, like in
so many other industries andit's the same for the food
industry, I think, same in someways for the medical industry,
same, for we're just sort ofunraveling and just getting back
to basic natural principles inthe 21st century.
We're using some moderntechnologies to enable that
(35:55):
journey back in differentenvironments, et cetera.
But what we're just enabling isjust getting back to that
natural state of natural health.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, I mean, it's clear there's a lot of
technological advances in yourwork and in your industry, but
there's also some setbacks inthat innovation process.
Let's kind of gear towards theproduction process, because it's
kind of the same thing beingable to produce locally and on
(36:26):
demand via your micro factories.
It challenges some traditionalsupply chains, your micro
factories, it challenges sometraditional supply chains.
What successes and whatsetbacks have you experienced so
far with how your productionprocess looks?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
well, I mean, the success is we have successfully
made 3d printed shoes thatpeople love to wear, and and and
.
In very simple terms, thefailure is we.
We have not managed to scalethat yet, and so we we're doing
it in the hundreds of pairs atthe moment.
We think in the next year it'sgoing to go into the thousands,
(36:59):
you know, and then, but you know, like we said, the world makes
24 billion pairs of shoes everyyear.
Vivo makes close to two millionpairs a year, nike makes, you
know, hundreds of millions ofpairs a year, and so you know,
the challenge is scalability.
Right, the cost is still quitehigh, like I said, but the
(37:20):
accuracy with the mobilescanning is is still too low.
Some of the polymers andmaterials up until now have been
too stiff and too brittle andand probably do have a little
bit of a microplastic problem.
So, you know, we do now thinkwe have a system where we can
scan your foot and we can make abespoke pair of shoes for you,
(37:43):
and at the moment it's mainlysandals and water shoes or a
sole that's stuck onto an upper.
It's relatively slow andrelatively expensive still, but
we can do it and the next phaseis to figure out how to
genuinely scale that Right, andare there any?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
what sort of like infrastructure or partnerships?
I mean you said you go fromhundreds to next year it's
looking like thousands.
What kind of infrastructure orpartnerships have been most
essential to delivering thesecustom footwear, trying to get
that to scale?
Is there anything that comes tomind?
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Scanning technology, of course Printing technology,
of course Columnar science Tosome degree.
Where you do want to stick asole onto an upper, then it the
the technology to be able to dothat without a big, long asian
supply chain.
So so we're investing quite alot in robo cell technology to
(38:40):
be able to automate that processof sticking a sole onto an
upper, especially where it'svery variable.
We're working with someexciting companies that figuring
out how to do that with naturalmaterials.
We're working with someexciting companies that are
figuring out how to do that withnatural materials.
And 3D printing can also beused to make molds.
So, rather than using big heavyindustrial metal molds, you can
3D print bespoke shapes andthen put sort of vacuum plastic
(39:05):
on it and then make the shoesole out of natural material
poured into the plastic mold.
So there's lots of kind ofexciting spin-offs, as it were,
should we say, of the new waysof making shoes in more
efficient ways.
But being able to make shoesperson by person, foot by foot,
(39:28):
in a larger scale is thechallenge.
But it ultimately will be local.
We're not trying to make a bigglobal solution here, we're
trying to make a local solution,but even on a local level.
I live in a relativelyunpopulated part of the UK, but
there's still 20 million peoplethat live in the Southwest.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, yeah yeah, exactly, I mean, and you have to
think about it like this it allhas to start somewhere and you
know if it's small.
Now you got to look to thefuture.
And looking to the future, youknow what are you most excited
about?
Where do you see the future ofvivo barefoot foot going in?
All that stuff?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
we live in a doomsday world right, where people are
predicting that, you know, therobots are going to take over
any day now and humans arebasically not going to have
anything to do.
And, you know, at best we'rewe're going to have 10 years of,
you know, hyper challenge, metacrises all over the world and
(40:28):
we might come out the other sidesort of with universal basic
income and everybody living, youknow, wonderful lives of
pleasure and joy.
Now I do believe that there's achance that this new
superintelligence that is beingcreated will also, you know,
perhaps re-educate humans on.
The nature is infinitely moreintelligent than anything that
(40:54):
artificial intelligence willever be, and if artificial
intelligence is genuinelyintelligent, it will respect
that and understand that and itwill teach humans that, and and
and it will teach humans that,in order for humans to be happy,
actually rebalancing andaligning ourselves to nature
will ultimately make us happier.
(41:15):
And living in small communities,eating natural food and I
believe that when you wearbarefoot shoes or less shoes and
you put your feet on the earth,you psychologically can't help
but believe that is the rightpath for humans to take to then
go back to living in localcommunities and living in local
(41:36):
food systems and rejecting sortof you know, being just part of
a giant global corporatism thatis making so many people unhappy
and disenfranchised and wherethe robots will take over and
humans will just serve therobots will take over and humans
will just serve the robots.
(41:57):
But actually regaining oursovereignty is about regaining
our responsibility for our ownhealth, and, you know, in our
case, that starts with puttingyour feet on the ground, feeling
the earth's energies, feelingyour own health and your own
natural potential.
And you can't do that in bigpadded, you know, uncomfortable
shoes that literally disconnectyou from nature, like big shoe
literally disconnects us.
(42:18):
And so when you, when you'vedisconnected from something, you
can treat it badly and and andyou don't care about it.
But when you feel something andyou, you're grounded to
something and you, you know you,you just you treat it with more
respect and you enjoy it moreyeah, and so you know
contribution to what I think notmany people disagree with.
Now to this.
(42:39):
You know, realigning to the, tothe natural world, you know
we'll be surrounded by god-liketechnology, no doubt about it.
But in the end, you know, moreand more people are obviously
understanding that the realhappiness comes from being in
communities close to nature,eating healthy food.
And you know our contributionto that transition is getting
(42:59):
people out of big padded,deforming shoes.
That is, ruining their healthand disconnecting themselves
from the very thing that's goingto save us.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, Get your feet back on the ground, folks.
We'll kind of wrap it there onon a pretty positive note.
One last thing how can peoplefollow this journey and follow
Viva Barefoot and stay connected?
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Well, you know, if we're anything, we're total
hypocrites, and the definitionof the hypocrite is the
shoemaker that goes aroundbarefoot.
And you know we live in a worldof oxymorons barefoot shoes,
you know, ethical business,eco-fashion all great oxymorons
of our time and obviously one ofthe other great oxymorons is
(43:43):
healthy digital.
So, of course, we're basicallyyou know, we're more than
anything a digital business andwe communicate, connecting with
nature, through using digitaltools, you know, and so
hypocritically, unfortunately,the best way to connect with us
is digitally and there's, youknow, obviously, websites and
social channels around vivo,barefoot.
(44:03):
But you know, and actually it'sone of the things we're
interested in, how do we usetechnology in some ways to
encourage people that you knowyou can only buy this pair of
shoes if you actually walk up tothe top of your local hill, and
you can.
You know that that will giveyou access to whatever.
But obviously that's one of thegreat challenges is how to live
(44:26):
healthy digital, and obviouslywe're staring at each other
through screen.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Through screen.
Hey, there's plenty of benefitsto technology as well.
I mean, we wouldn't be able totalk otherwise and see each
other.
Yeah, so that's a really greatpoint, galahad, I really
appreciate your time.
This was a lot of fun and Iappreciate you telling us your
story.
Thanks again for hopping onwith us.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
It's a pleasure.
Thanks very much for giving usthe space, and I really wish you
very well.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
All right, galad.
Thank you so much and thank youeveryone for listening.
That's all the time we havetoday.
See you next time.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of the Four Worlds
Podcast.
Until next time, you can catchup on the latest innovations
shaping our world atTomorrowsWorldTodaycom.
Follow us on Facebook andInstagram and be sure to
subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Can catch up on the latestinnovations shaping our world at
tomorrowsworldtodaycom.
Follow us on Facebook andInstagram and be sure to
(45:15):
subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Welcome to the Four Worlds podcast from Tomorrow's
World.
Today, we're diving into thelatest in tech, science and
sustainability, from nature'smysteries and the world of
inspiration to the hands-oncrafts of creation, the bold
breakthroughs of innovation andthe scaled-up wonders of
production.
This is your ticket to thestories shaping tomorrow.
(00:22):
Welcome back, everyone, toanother episode of the Four
Worlds podcast.
Today we're talking aboutsustainability in the shoe
industry.
Joining us for that is GalahadClark, one of the co-founders at
Vivo Barefoot.
Galahad, I appreciate your time, especially all the way over in
the UK.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
How are you Wonderful to be here and connected to
Pittsburgh from sunny Somerset.
We're just finishing our summerholidays here.
I know all you lot have beenback to school already for 10
days or so, but we don't go backto school here until September.
So I'm just counting down thedays that my kids go back to
school on Monday and the realholidays start then.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Right, right, I think the biggest thing, a part of
that you said the sunny Somerset.
It's sunny here in Pittsburgh,so two rarities, I think, to
start off the podcast.
Correct, all right, galahad,let's get into it.
For people who don't know whoViva Barefoot is and what they
do, I'd love to hear a littlebit more about that and just
(01:25):
give the audience a little bitof insight of what you do and
what exactly your product is.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So Vivo Barefoot literally means live barefoot,
and so the company pretty muchdoes what it says on the tin,
where we enable people to livebarefoot in, no matter what
they're doing, how they're doingit, where they're doing it
where they're doing it.
We're a footwear company, so wewe make footwear, but we make
footwear that is as close tobarefoot as possible, and we
(01:53):
make a whole wide range offootwear from kids, adults, from
hiking to gym to everydaylifestyle shoes.
So no matter kind of whatyou're doing, how you're doing
it, you can always experiencethat in pure barefoot bliss with
Vivo Barefoot.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And we will dive deep into this.
But I mentioned bringingsustainability to the footwear
industry.
Give a little bit of backgroundhow exactly you do that and how
you're able to basically make aproduct that feels like you're
barefoot.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, so I come from a long line of shoemakers, seven
generations of shoemakers.
Funny enough, in about threeweeks time we're celebrating the
200 year anniversary of ourfamily making shoes in Somerset
making shoes in Somerset.
And actually the very firstshoe they ever made in 1825 was
(02:50):
a pretty good barefoot sheepskinslipper.
So in many ways what we'redoing now is kind of just
returning back to the beginning,but from a sustainability.
So I was kind of in the shoeindustry, I was born into the
shoe industry and for one reasonor another I then ended up in
the shoe industry afteruniversity.
Desperately didn't want to gointo the shoe industry and from
one reason or another I thenended up in the shoe industry
after university.
Desperately didn't want to gointo the shoe industry in many
ways, but it was.
(03:11):
I was actually studying inamerica and it was in america
that I got dragged into theindustry via a long story to do
with the wu-tang clan, but whatyou know.
It was a time whensustainability and
sustainability and design was amuch more important topic than
probably, sadly, is today inmany ways.
And there's an Americanprofessor called John Ehrenfeld
(03:33):
who wrote a book calledSustainability products and
filling the world up with morestuff is that a product should
help us connect more with nature, make us feel more human,
improve the human condition, askimportant environmental or
(03:54):
ethical questions.
And I was already aware ofbarefoot shoes at this time and
we'd already sort of startedplaying around with making
barefoot prototypes and thingsand the concept of barefoot, but
I realized that the only shoesthat actually connect humans
more to nature and actually havea sort of positive impact on
human health were barefoot shoes.
(04:14):
So in many ways I came tobarefoot through sustainability
thinking.
So you know, my starting pointwas the most sustainable shoes
in the world are barefoot shoesby definition.
And you know, in many ways thebeginning of wisdom is the
definition of terms andeverybody has slightly different
definitions of whatsustainability is.
(04:35):
But I, like John Ehrenfeldt,and he said, you know, that all
of life on Earth should be ableto flourish, and that for me is
a great flourishing, is a greatword and a great definition of
sustainability.
And it was through his work andthrough his thinking that
actually, you know, I came torealize that the most
sustainable shoemaking in theworld is barefoot shoemaking.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And you say that his definition of sustainability
inspired you to do what you donow.
What's your definition ofsustainability inspired you to
do what you do now?
What's your definition ofsustainability after being in
this industry for so long andcreating this product?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
well, it's it's funny because the you know, the
sustainability in many ways gotsort of replaced by regenerative
and and there's all thesebuzzwords in in this world that
you know some people sayrestorative, and you know, like
the, if you were to imagine likea spectrum, and the shoe
industry is genuinely one of theleast sustainable industries in
(05:36):
the world.
On many levels it's adevastating industry for both
planetary and human health.
It's fundamentally asubtractive industry where it's
taking, you know, resources fromthe earth and then also,
frankly, taking health fromhumans, both in the polluting
activities in the making anddistributing of shoes, but then
(05:58):
also literally in the impact ithas on the user of most of what
I call big shoe shoes right andthen you know.
So if you go from subtractiveand you go up the spectrum, you
know, arguably sustainability isjust sort of net zero, it's.
It's sort of not positive, notnegative, it's sustainable.
And then you might get torestorative, which is maybe net
(06:22):
positive, where you're doingmore good than you are doing
harm.
But then I like the definitionof regenerative, which is means
you know we're actually aligningto living systems, you're
actually aligning to nature andyou're following nature's
wisdoms rather than kind ofimposing oneself on nature.
You know a lot ofsustainability thinking and
(06:43):
rhetoric out there is abouthumans saving the world and you
know saving nature.
But obviously the world isgoing to be more than fine
without humans.
In fact it would be a lotbetter without humans.
So the best things humans cando to save themselves is just
align themselves and ultimatelyfollow nature and natural
systems, rather than the otherway around.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Right and to that point.
You know, believing thatconventional shoes, you know,
harm both our bodies and theenvironment.
When did you first realize that, and how did that steer your
vision?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean you'd be shocked how few people in the
shoe industry genuinelyunderstand human biomechanics,
the way the body moves and theforces on those bodies, anatomy
of the foot and the way the footis designed and supposed to
function.
You know you hear so many timesin the shoe industry veterans
(07:39):
of the shoe industry when yousort of say, well, why do you do
it like that?
Well, why, why, why and thenand, and and.
In the end they go well, butthat's just the way we've always
done it and you know it feelsthat way in a lot of industries.
And so I was lucky enough, Ithink you know, by happenstance,
to a childhood friend of minewho was really into postural
alignment therapy.
(07:59):
He kept on getting injured as atennis player and his father
was an Alexander Techniqueteacher and Alexander Technique
is all about aligning yourposture.
It's used a lot by actors andmusicians and also sports people
, and he realized that trainers,anything with a heel and
(08:21):
anything that was conscriptinghis foot was actually making
postural alignment verydifficult.
He was a student at the RoyalCollege.
He was a sort of designer andinnovator and, to cut a long
story short, he got a pair ofNike shoes.
He sliced off the sole of theshoes and stitched a tennis
racket cover on the bottom.
And so he made what looked likea kind of cool pair of Nike
(08:42):
shoes, but with none of theunderfoot technology, and made
it a bit wider.
And he brought it to me andjust said, look, this is the way
shoes should be made, and Iinstinctively loved the idea.
And then so the education thenstarted with him and started
with postural alignment thinking.
And then there was a guy calledlee saxby who had been studying
(09:04):
with a guy called dr romanoff,who had been studying with a guy
called Dr Romanoff who's basedin America, based in, I think,
florida, and he was then alsoinfluencing a guy called Dan
Lieberman at Harvard Universityin the evolutionary biology lab.
So there were, and then ChrisMcDougall kind of pulled
together a lot of these storiesin the seminal book born to run,
which came out in about 2009 10I think and so there's a
(09:27):
confluence of educators and andscience and practitioners that
suddenly, all you know, I waslucky enough to be surrounded by
and, frankly, to be able tostudy with them and learn from
them, and so that that is whatyou know many ways kind of
started that what I call firstbarefoot revolution.
(09:48):
You know, v-brand five fingerswere kind of at the heart of all
of that, and that all happenedaround that time 2010, 2011 and
and as I started to learn moreand more, more about it and as I
started to wear barefoot shoesmore and more, the circles of
theory and practice got biggerand bigger and one thing led to
another and in 2012 we droppedeverything else we were doing.
(10:10):
We were involved in some othershoe businesses that's my cousin
and I, asher and just kind ofwent all in on barefoot shoes
because we sort of realized thatthis is really the only way to
make not only sustainable shoes,but the only way to make shoes
that actually have any chance ofbeing regenerative or be
positive for people and planet.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, and a big part of that is the process of 3D
printing this footwear.
At what point did you see thatpotential, just reimagining
footwear design in productionthrough 3D printing?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah.
So 3D printing was being usedin the shoe industry quite a lot
for prototyping and justquickly imagining new shoes, and
so you know, and then off theback of that, you know,
obviously people were kind ofwell, wouldn't it be amazing if
we could 3D print shoes?
So that was a sort of idea thatwas bubbling around in the shoe
(11:06):
industry anyway to some degree.
But through Barefoot, and oneof the other avenues that the
barefoot adventures opened upwas, you know, we realized not
only is sustainable shoemakingbarefoot shoemaking, but
actually all indigenousshoemaking is barefoot
shoemaking.
And when I say indigenousshoemaking I just mean people,
(11:27):
you know, who effectively livefree, living free, people who
effectively live free let's say,agricultural revolutionary
times, no matter where they arein the world.
So humans made footwear becauseour feet are very sensitive and
have lots of nerve endings, andso when we started to do the
running hunting in Africa, wemade sandals as one of the first
(11:49):
tools that Homo sapiens, thetool maker, ever made.
And of course they were perfectbarefoot sandals and they
enabled the early humans to beable to run down an antelope for
eight hours across the hotbaked plains of the African
savannah with lots of camelthorns, and we needed those
sandals or protect us from theheat and from the puncture,
(12:13):
protection from the sharp thornsin africa.
And then, as that small groupof humans, left africa and
started to cross the mountainsand cross the deserts and we
made shoes wherever we went.
But we made shoes person byperson, foot by, from the local
animal skins.
So you know, the first peoplesin Europe and America would have
(12:35):
made bison skin moccasins anddeer skin moccasins.
The first peoples up in theArctic made reindeer skin
moccasins and the subcontinentit was buffalo sandals.
The people that lived in thejungles and the forests made
woven shoes out of differentplants.
They used lactahevia rubber andmade the early molded shoes.
(12:59):
And all those shoes were perfectbarefoot shoes and they were
all made person by person, footby foot, from the local relevant
, sustainable materials, if youuse that slightly awful word
again.
And what we realized with 3Dprinting was you know you could
go back to a shoe industry whereyou know you only made shoes
(13:22):
person by person, foot by footagain, rather than in these big
Asian subtractive supply chainswhere big factories are doing
cookie cutter shoes in you knownot that many different sizes.
You know maybe 10, 12 adultsizes across men's and women's,
only five or six sizes in eachgender.
(13:45):
And you know, by definition,those cookie cutter shoes will
not fit most people because thefoot shape is such that you know
when you cookie cut a size andyou force all of the size 10s
into a size 10, by definition,only about 30% of people that
(14:07):
are size 10 actually fit a size10.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Right, yeah, that's when you see all these different
brands.
Oh I'm, I'm nine and a half inso-and-so brand, but I'm a 10 in
this brand.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
It's all over the place and I couldn't agree more
and the reason is because feetare all over the place, the
width of the width of people'sfeet, the arch height, bridge
height, all the volumes, all the, all the shapes very, very
different, and and so what wequickly realized was that 3d
printing gives us theopportunity to get away from
mass manufactured shoes thatdon't fit people and are
(14:44):
fundamentally unsustainable onmany levels and they literally
deform people's feet.
Most people in the West wearingthose cookie cutter shoes have
deformed weak feet because ofthe shoes.
And 3D printing gives theopportunity to go back to
actually making shoes for peoplethat really fit and allow the
foot to be strong, natural andhealthy and if you've got a
(15:04):
strong, natural, healthy foot,the rest of your body works
tremendously better.
If you've got a weak, deformedfoot, you pay for that up the
kinetic thing, you pay for it inyour knees and your hips and
your back, you know.
And so 3d printing became.
So we we obviously do makeshoes as beaver barefoot in
those long supply chains and wedo make size shoes.
(15:27):
So ours are relatively betterbecause they're relatively wider
and they're relatively moreflexible.
But we realized that theultimate expression of our
mission, which is to reconnectpeople with nature, starting
with their feet, and reconnectwith their natural potential,
would be to actually be able tomake shoes person by person,
(15:47):
foot by foot, again, the sameway all humans had footwear made
for the first 90,000 years ofexistence.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, just make people running around the world.
Yeah, absolutely Completelyunderstand what you mean and,
taking all of that intoconsideration, wanting to get
back to making shoes person byperson.
You have that inspiration, youhave that idea and then, when
you start that creation processfor these shoes and for the
footwear, what were some ofthose challenges and some of
(16:20):
those setbacks as you got intothat creation process?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, it's interesting because, like we
said in the beginning, when youstart asking people in the
footwear industry, why are youdoing like this, why are you
doing like that, why, why, why,why, why, and you start saying,
well, you know, you don't.
You know, any kind of heel isthrowing off natural postural
alignment.
Any kind of height restrictiveshape is not allowing the foot
(16:46):
to splay and contract as as itmight do.
Any arch support is ultimatelyweakening the arch because it's
acting like a splint.
Any kind of toe spring isrendering the big toe, the great
toe, ineffective.
Why, why, why, you know, why dotoddler's shoes look like feet
and why do six-year-old shoeslook like bananas?
(17:07):
And the answer was always well,I've always done it, and and
and.
So when we started saying, well, actually, there's a different
way, and and, all this paddingand all this support and
structures and the footwearindustry is full of all this
kind of underfoot technology youmust have a, you know, a shank
which is a stiff supportivestructure between the forefoot
(17:29):
and the rear foot.
You must have arch support, youmust have toe spring, etc.
Etc.
And you know the.
The shapes are all kind ofingrained in fashion culture.
So it was read huge challenges,just, and we were young,
obviously, and and naive, and sothe experienced owners and
experts in the footwear industrykept on telling us we were
(17:51):
wrong, wrong, wrong.
So, aside from just all thoseobvious challenges of saying,
well, you know, we don't believein any of these bogus rules
that the footwear industry hasset up.
You know, actually, when it cameto making shoes that are
fundamentally a lot thinner,softer, more flexible than
normal shoes, it's relativelyeasy to make a thick, stiff
(18:13):
thing compared to a soft, floppything.
Sure, especially when you're,you know, and the problem with
footwear is you're sticking asole which needs to be abrasion
resistant and durable and longlasting to an upper which needs
to be soft and flexible andcomfortable.
So you've sort of got twocompeting forces of materials
(18:34):
fundamentally.
And then if you increase theflexibility and you increase the
wear and you reduce all thethicknesses and increase the
softness, you get a bigshoe-making challenge basically.
So they look like simple shoesto make but in reality they're
much harder to make.
So the softer a shoe is, theharder it is to make.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
And when you're doing all of that again, keeping all
of that in mind, you're finallymaking and producing this shoe.
You're using some materialsthat fit that sustainable
definition.
What are those materials thatyou're using to 3D print these
shoes?
How does that work?
Some that's biodegradable.
How do you manage to pull thatoff?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, I mean pulling it off would be an incorrect
thing to say.
We're still on the journey oftrying to figure it out Right?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, more in that prototype.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, so the starting point is that the world makes
24 billion pairs of shoes everyyear and nearly every single one
of those shoes is made withpolluting materials.
So nearly all the foams andplastics come from the
petrochemical industry.
Nearly all the leather ispanned with heavy metals, which
(19:48):
is terribly carcinogenic, pannedwith heavy metals, which is
terribly carcinogenic.
All the glues and the threadsand you know various bits of
hardware that you find infootwear also, you know,
terribly polluting.
All the waterproof microplastictype treatments are.
All are all problematic andnearly all shoes, like we said,
don't really fit humans and andthen they nearly all end up in
(20:09):
landfill, which is kind of theelephant in the room that
there's no real end-of-lifesolution in the footwear
industry.
Some companies have started tooffer solutions and becoming
more of a thing.
So the starting point is ishorrific.
So you kind of, and we make awide variety of shoes.
So when you start, let's say,with leather, so rather than you
(20:30):
know the worst case scenario,and actually you know a lot of
the big shoe industry got intotrouble for with where where the
leather come is a is abyproduct of the agricultural
industry and so let's say, a lotof the cattle industry now has
been found guilty of choppingdown amazon rainforest to build
big cattle farms, you know, andthen using loads of bloody
(20:52):
hormones and drugs to rear thecattle, and then the shoe
industry uses the leather fromthose cattle farms.
And you know the bigagriculture.
So that's the problem.
So what's the solution?
So can we find leather fromsmall, sustainable farmers who
(21:12):
are not using lots of terribledrugs and cutting down virgin
rainforests to raise theiranimals, and so what we call
wild hide?
And so we source the leathervery specifically from
small-holding farmers that theanimals live a decent life and
that the skins are a bit moreirregular and they've got a bit
(21:34):
more markings on them becausethe animals are allowed to roam
around in nature, etc.
So that's like one example ofmaybe 50 examples taking an
existing material in the shoeindustry and finding an
alternative, exactly, and that'swith the cottons and the hemp,
and then the foams and the, youknow, and then the all of the
(21:56):
chemical rubbers to the actualnatural rubbers, to the, and.
And look there's, there's lotsof wonderful innovation
happening all across the peaksand going from petrochemical
plastics to plant-based plasticsand and so on and so forth.
And the average shoe company,let's say, of any kind of size.
We make nearly 2 million pairsof shoes a year and we use
(22:18):
literally nearly 1,000components across all the shoes
we make, and we're a relativelysmall shoe company in the grand
scheme of things.
So when you get up to the likesof Nike, it will be probably 10
, different components andsupply, you know.
So there is a lot ofsustainable innovation happening
in the material supply chain.
(22:40):
But you know, you've got to.
You know, you almost just gotto pick them off one by one, bit
by bit.
And the trade-off betweensomething that's proven
long-lasting, durable, fantasticabrasion resistance to
something that is natural andbiodegradable by definition,
that's a tough trade-off.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, there's a lot of elements that go into finding
a circular life cycle forshoots.
It's something that maybepeople don't think about.
And tell me about your approachand speak a little bit about
the BioSurf Flex material, howall of that is just kind of
helping you work towards, maybethat circular lifestyle for
(23:24):
footwear.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So two approaches natural and what we call
polycircular.
And there's the biodegradable,so from nature, back to nature,
using natural materials.
And there's a biodegradable, sofrom nature, back to nature,
using natural materials that cangenuinely be biodegraded one
approach.
And then the other approach ispolycircular shoes that are
ultimately made from syntheticmaterials, ideally coming from
plant sources rather thanpetrochemical sources, that can
(23:47):
then be genuinely recycled.
So we work on those twostrategies effectively and both
ultimately trying to be circular.
The obvious challenge withnatural, like we just said, is
durability, especially inperformance shoes and weight and
water ricking and things,although obviously as we go, you
(24:11):
know materials like wool, thatthere is no synthetic material
in the world that comes close tothe amazing qualities of wool,
for example, and frankly thesame for leather.
And then on the polycircularside, and the material you
mentioned is a plastic that canultimately be truly recycled in
(24:33):
a chemical recycling way, andactually there's a number of the
big shoe companies are tryingto figure this out Right.
It's proving to be tremendouslymore difficult than anybody
kind of imagined five years ago,because the problem is in the
wear, in heat, the, the plasticskeep slightly altering and so
(24:55):
when you come to take back theshoes.
What maybe started off as apure set of polymers that in
theory could then be recycledback into that pure set of
polymers, they've slightlyaltered in in the making, in the
treatment, the wearing.
When the glue then meets thetwo different polymers, that
then sets off another littlechemical reaction.
And so the challenge of beingable to genuinely recycle what
(25:19):
becomes impure polymers, to getit back to the same grade as
plastic, is really difficult.
At the moment, all recycling isbasically downcycling.
So you're taking a fleece andit turns into, you know, a
rubbish bin and then turns intoa playground.
But to get a plastic bottlethat truly can go back to being
a plastic bottle is is somethingthat's, you know where
(25:42):
literally billions of dollarsare being spent on trying to
figure that out.
And it's not just the actualchemistry of being able to get
it back to food grade plastic,it's also just it's chemistry of
being able to get it back tofood-grade plastic.
It's also the cultural systemsand the societal systems to get
people to actually engage in therecycling schemes.
And you know, I think glassbottles, for example, which
(26:03):
you'd think is the simplestthing to recycle in the world,
and it's something like only 25or 30 percent of glass bottles
actually get recycled, wow,whereas glass is, you know, in
theory a perfectly circularmaterial.
But you know, the big problemthe glass industry has is just
getting people to, bloody well,send the glass back.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head right
there.
Just, I mean, how manycommunities just don't even
offer recycling or makerecycling extremely difficult?
I've lived in places where,instead of putting out a
recycling bin, you have to takeit to a site.
And, let's be honest, whatpercentage of people are taking
(26:44):
their time out of their day?
It's true, it really is youknow, a minority yeah right,
exactly it's.
It's a very small amount.
So getting there and justtalking about making an unpure
polymer back into pure plasticis from my writing and from some
of those stories that I havedone has been one of the biggest
(27:05):
challenge of trying to find acircular plastic or a plastic
that is truly recyclable.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
As you know, there's a huge amount of investment.
There's wonderful companiesreally trying really hard,
multiple big companies all overthe world investing a lot of
time, money and effort intotrying to figure this out.
If you'd have asked me 10 yearsago, I'd have said yeah, we're
five years away from this thingbeing nailed, but 10 years later
(27:35):
it kind of feels like we'restill at stage one.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Right, it's one of those things that just always
feels like it's five years away.
That's a great point, likeright now, 10 years ago you
thought it.
Right now you think like, okay,we're five years away, we'll
figure it out at some point.
It's all really good points andone of the kind of switching it
up a little bit here.
One of the things that we wereinterested in is your Vivo Biome
(27:59):
system.
Just tell the audience a littlebit about that how you meld AI,
mobile scanning and local 3Dprinting into building a custom
circular product.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, so Vivo Viome is the epitome of the Vivo
mission.
It's sort of the ultimatefuture of the way we love to see
the shoe industry go.
We mentioned it earlier.
It was ultimately going back tohumans being able to make
personalized shoes forthemselves, person by person,
foot by foot again, so usingmodern technology.
(28:32):
And in reality, obviously we'renot going to go back to a world
where we all go to the localcobbler and stand on a bison
skin and they carefully measurearound the skin and make a
beautiful pair of moccasins toour preferences, with our tribal
colors kind of stitched intothe uppers and some nice beading
around them.
But you know, I guess thatmight happen more and more.
(28:55):
But in lieu of that, like whateverybody does now is they walk
around effectively with ascanning technology in their
pocket, and so it's not perfectyet and and and not all new
phones have it, but, butbasically, before long, mobile
phones will be able to prettyaccurately scan your feet.
(29:15):
So with a scan, we can takethat scan and then we can create
, you know, and with you know,various algorithms and AI
learning.
We can take that scan and thencreate a framework for you to
then be able to interact with adigital program to choose the
type of footwear you'd like youcan personalize it to.
(29:38):
Do you want more grip, lessgrip?
Do you want you know yourgirlfriend's name printed on the
bottom?
Do you want a picture of yourfavorite comic book hero?
Put it down the side?
You can kind of do anythingright and and then so you know,
as I said earlier, there's onething being able to print one
layer in one material, butobviously a lot of footwear
(30:00):
needs two different densities,one for the sole and one for the
upper, and, as you can imagine,there's lots of exciting 3d
printing technologies that arefiguring out both options.
So at the moment, we can doreally good sandals, we can do
really good water shoes and wecan do soles that we then can
stick onto a sock that we callwhat we call hybrid, but still
(30:22):
ultimately sort of personalizedand bespoke to the user.
So you know, our vision is thatbefore long, the days of just
going and buying cookie cuttershoes that don't fit you will be
over and when people startexperiencing shoes that truly
fit them, truly allow their feetto be strong, natural and
(30:43):
healthy and connected to theearth, and they can pretty much
choose, you know, whatever stylethey want and it be quite
unique to them.
Yeah Is where we think it willgo.
And you know, again, with 3Dprinting, you know, I think 10
years ago people were kind ofgoing in five years' time,
everything's going to be 3Dprinted.
You know, 10 years later it'sgoing to be rather slower than
(31:06):
people thought, right, and nowwe're saying five years' time
everything's going to be 3Dprinted.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, it's kind of the same argument.
It's always that, five yearsdown the road.
And to that point, how do youforesee, let's say, ai and
mobile scanning, transformingboth, like you mentioned, the
personalization andsustainability when you touched
on it a little bit?
But I'd like to hear yourpersonal.
You're doing it every day, sowhere do you see that kind of
(31:34):
happening down the line?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
More and more companies are joining the market
.
More and more human ingenuityis going into figuring out the
3D scanners.
More and more human figuringout the polymers, especially the
sustainable biodegradablepolymers.
Amazing companies reallyfiguring out plant-based
biodegradable polymers.
That you know kind of, becauseobviously you know we don't want
(31:57):
to just fill the world up withmore microplastics and what is
an exciting technology that willimprove health and function but
in you know, there's kind of nopoint if it's totally toxic.
So you know we and we see thathappening all over the world and
and you know we're not quite atmore's law in terms of 3d
(32:17):
printing and and scanning yet.
But you know, like I said, thephones, that the technology is
in some phones now.
It will soon be in all phones.
Right, it will be.
It's slightly imprecise now.
It will get more precise andthat is pretty essential to the
whole thing really working foreverybody.
So right now that we needphysical offline scanners to be
(32:40):
able to get it precise enough toreally make a perfect pair of
bespoke shoes for you, the phonecan can get us pretty close,
but that will improve.
We see, in the polymers we justsaw a new innovation literally
in the last month, of a verylightweight, foamed 3D printed
material that also hasbiodegradable qualities, that
(33:02):
just provides a kind of softnessand a flexibility and comfort
that has never been seen beforein 3D printing and so on and so
forth.
Right, and then you know, beingable to 3D print the upper
materials and make them soft andbreathable and flexible enough
but also weather resistant.
All the pieces are starting tocome together.
(33:23):
You know the lovely thing aboutat least from our point of view
.
You know, this whole thingabout underfoot technology and
funny shapes in the footwearindustry is a kind of modern
phenomenon, and what 3D printingwill allow us to do is go back
to making shoes that aregenuinely for your feet, that
(33:43):
feel absolutely.
You know there's nothing betterthan walking barefoot.
You know, I think there's avery there are a few people that
say they prefer shoes, but Ithink there's not many kids that
start off and those are mainlyadults that are just used to
wearing shoes and their feethave gotten weak and they can't
be bothered to do the transitionback to strong, healthy feet.
But there's not many kids inthe world that don't prefer to
(34:07):
run around barefoot.
You're right, bad thing, and aslong as you never deform and
weaken a kid's foot.
That sort of starting pointwill always be there.
So humans are walking around inpointy-heeled shoes because of
horse riding.
We made pointy-heeled shoes togo into stirrups for horse
(34:29):
riding and being able to fighteach other on horses.
To have a horse was a highstatus, aristocratic thing.
So to have horse riding shoeswas a high status thing to have.
So everybody wanted to havehigh status heel pointy shoes.
But we're kind of over fightingeach other on horses now and you
know, just you know, and andand actually what happened with
(34:52):
Nike was they started off makingreally good barefoot shoes, but
they got in a bunch of but whenthey everyone started running
in their black barefoot shoes,people were getting injured and
the doctors came in and saidwell, if you want to make shoes
that people can immediately kindof go running in, you need to
make them like their work shoes,so you need to make them pointy
and heel.
Running in, you need to makethem like their work shoes, so
(35:13):
you need to make them pointy andheel.
So nike put in the heel stack,yeah, with all the bloody air
bubbles, and started to make theshoot the toes more pointy and
raised.
And so you know, they madetheir shoes like people's feet
were because of the shoes.
So all the new technology in theshoe industry is there to solve
the problems caused by shoesitself.
(35:35):
It's a terrible shoe matrix andyou know our job and, like in
so many other industries andit's the same for the food
industry, I think, same in someways for the medical industry,
same, for we're just sort ofunraveling and just getting back
to basic natural principles inthe 21st century.
We're using some moderntechnologies to enable that
(35:55):
journey back in differentenvironments, et cetera.
But what we're just enabling isjust getting back to that
natural state of natural health.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, I mean, it's clear there's a lot of
technological advances in yourwork and in your industry, but
there's also some setbacks inthat innovation process.
Let's kind of gear towards theproduction process, because it's
kind of the same thing beingable to produce locally and on
(36:26):
demand via your micro factories.
It challenges some traditionalsupply chains, your micro
factories, it challenges sometraditional supply chains.
What successes and whatsetbacks have you experienced so
far with how your productionprocess looks?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
well, I mean, the success is we have successfully
made 3d printed shoes thatpeople love to wear, and and and
.
In very simple terms, thefailure is we.
We have not managed to scalethat yet, and so we we're doing
it in the hundreds of pairs atthe moment.
We think in the next year it'sgoing to go into the thousands,
(36:59):
you know, and then, but you know, like we said, the world makes
24 billion pairs of shoes everyyear.
Vivo makes close to two millionpairs a year, nike makes, you
know, hundreds of millions ofpairs a year, and so you know,
the challenge is scalability.
Right, the cost is still quitehigh, like I said, but the
(37:20):
accuracy with the mobilescanning is is still too low.
Some of the polymers andmaterials up until now have been
too stiff and too brittle andand probably do have a little
bit of a microplastic problem.
So, you know, we do now thinkwe have a system where we can
scan your foot and we can make abespoke pair of shoes for you,
(37:43):
and at the moment it's mainlysandals and water shoes or a
sole that's stuck onto an upper.
It's relatively slow andrelatively expensive still, but
we can do it and the next phaseis to figure out how to
genuinely scale that Right, andare there any?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
what sort of like infrastructure or partnerships?
I mean you said you go fromhundreds to next year it's
looking like thousands.
What kind of infrastructure orpartnerships have been most
essential to delivering thesecustom footwear, trying to get
that to scale?
Is there anything that comes tomind?
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Scanning technology, of course Printing technology,
of course Columnar science Tosome degree.
Where you do want to stick asole onto an upper, then it the
the technology to be able to dothat without a big, long asian
supply chain.
So so we're investing quite alot in robo cell technology to
(38:40):
be able to automate that processof sticking a sole onto an
upper, especially where it'svery variable.
We're working with someexciting companies that figuring
out how to do that with naturalmaterials.
We're working with someexciting companies that are
figuring out how to do that withnatural materials.
And 3D printing can also beused to make molds.
So, rather than using big heavyindustrial metal molds, you can
3D print bespoke shapes andthen put sort of vacuum plastic
(39:05):
on it and then make the shoesole out of natural material
poured into the plastic mold.
So there's lots of kind ofexciting spin-offs, as it were,
should we say, of the new waysof making shoes in more
efficient ways.
But being able to make shoesperson by person, foot by foot,
(39:28):
in a larger scale is thechallenge.
But it ultimately will be local.
We're not trying to make a bigglobal solution here, we're
trying to make a local solution,but even on a local level.
I live in a relativelyunpopulated part of the UK, but
there's still 20 million peoplethat live in the Southwest.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, yeah yeah, exactly, I mean, and you have to
think about it like this it allhas to start somewhere and you
know if it's small.
Now you got to look to thefuture.
And looking to the future, youknow what are you most excited
about?
Where do you see the future ofvivo barefoot foot going in?
All that stuff?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
we live in a doomsday world right, where people are
predicting that, you know, therobots are going to take over
any day now and humans arebasically not going to have
anything to do.
And, you know, at best we'rewe're going to have 10 years of,
you know, hyper challenge, metacrises all over the world and
(40:28):
we might come out the other sidesort of with universal basic
income and everybody living, youknow, wonderful lives of
pleasure and joy.
Now I do believe that there's achance that this new
superintelligence that is beingcreated will also, you know,
perhaps re-educate humans on.
The nature is infinitely moreintelligent than anything that
(40:54):
artificial intelligence willever be, and if artificial
intelligence is genuinelyintelligent, it will respect
that and understand that and itwill teach humans that, and and
and it will teach humans that,in order for humans to be happy,
actually rebalancing andaligning ourselves to nature
will ultimately make us happier.
(41:15):
And living in small communities,eating natural food and I
believe that when you wearbarefoot shoes or less shoes and
you put your feet on the earth,you psychologically can't help
but believe that is the rightpath for humans to take to then
go back to living in localcommunities and living in local
(41:36):
food systems and rejecting sortof you know, being just part of
a giant global corporatism thatis making so many people unhappy
and disenfranchised and wherethe robots will take over and
humans will just serve therobots will take over and humans
will just serve the robots.
(41:57):
But actually regaining oursovereignty is about regaining
our responsibility for our ownhealth, and, you know, in our
case, that starts with puttingyour feet on the ground, feeling
the earth's energies, feelingyour own health and your own
natural potential.
And you can't do that in bigpadded, you know, uncomfortable
shoes that literally disconnectyou from nature, like big shoe
literally disconnects us.
(42:18):
And so when you, when you'vedisconnected from something, you
can treat it badly and and andyou don't care about it.
But when you feel something andyou, you're grounded to
something and you, you know you,you just you treat it with more
respect and you enjoy it moreyeah, and so you know
contribution to what I think notmany people disagree with.
Now to this.
(42:39):
You know, realigning to the, tothe natural world, you know
we'll be surrounded by god-liketechnology, no doubt about it.
But in the end, you know, moreand more people are obviously
understanding that the realhappiness comes from being in
communities close to nature,eating healthy food.
And you know our contributionto that transition is getting
(42:59):
people out of big padded,deforming shoes.
That is, ruining their healthand disconnecting themselves
from the very thing that's goingto save us.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, Get your feet back on the ground, folks.
We'll kind of wrap it there onon a pretty positive note.
One last thing how can peoplefollow this journey and follow
Viva Barefoot and stay connected?
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Well, you know, if we're anything, we're total
hypocrites, and the definitionof the hypocrite is the
shoemaker that goes aroundbarefoot.
And you know we live in a worldof oxymorons barefoot shoes,
you know, ethical business,eco-fashion all great oxymorons
of our time and obviously one ofthe other great oxymorons is
(43:43):
healthy digital.
So, of course, we're basicallyyou know, we're more than
anything a digital business andwe communicate, connecting with
nature, through using digitaltools, you know, and so
hypocritically, unfortunately,the best way to connect with us
is digitally and there's, youknow, obviously, websites and
social channels around vivo,barefoot.
(44:03):
But you know, and actually it'sone of the things we're
interested in, how do we usetechnology in some ways to
encourage people that you knowyou can only buy this pair of
shoes if you actually walk up tothe top of your local hill, and
you can.
You know that that will giveyou access to whatever.
But obviously that's one of thegreat challenges is how to live
(44:26):
healthy digital, and obviouslywe're staring at each other
through screen.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Through screen.
Hey, there's plenty of benefitsto technology as well.
I mean, we wouldn't be able totalk otherwise and see each
other.
Yeah, so that's a really greatpoint, galahad, I really
appreciate your time.
This was a lot of fun and Iappreciate you telling us your
story.
Thanks again for hopping onwith us.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
It's a pleasure.
Thanks very much for giving usthe space, and I really wish you
very well.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
All right, galad.
Thank you so much and thank youeveryone for listening.
That's all the time we havetoday.
See you next time.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of the Four Worlds
Podcast.
Until next time, you can catchup on the latest innovations
shaping our world atTomorrowsWorldTodaycom.
Follow us on Facebook andInstagram and be sure to
subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Can catch up on the latestinnovations shaping our world at
tomorrowsworldtodaycom.
Follow us on Facebook andInstagram and be sure to
(45:15):
subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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