Keen To Make Green Soxy (and Stand Out)
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 04.28.08
Earlier this month, Keen announced the winners of their STAND sustainability awareness contest. Prizes totaling $150,000 USD were awarded to three winners and fifteen runners up.
The three respective winners in their categories of Stand Up, Stand Out and Stand For were: a) Spencer Brown’s Rent a Green Box makes rentable reusable moving crates out of recycled plastic waste; b)Leslie Freeman’s Wild Science Explorers takes under privileged high school students on river trips complete with science education and Leave No Trace training; and Brian Bell, and the team at the University of Minnesota chapter of Engineers Without Borders, who are working in Haiti to develop ways to recycle HDPE water transport sachets into durable footwear for kids.
Access the full list of equally worthy runner-ups here.
But this STAND contest isn’t the only eco endeavour that Keen has been up to of late. They now have a line of high grade socks made from Merino wool, and if we read correctly recycled polyester. They’ve also introduced a hemp upper version of their cornerstone product: the Newport sandal.
And in February the company donated over $9,000, collected at an industry fundraiser, to the Conservation Alliance, Big City Mountaineers, Leave No Trace, and American Whitewater. And in the past we’ve covered their eco-carton shoe boxes, recycled bags and repurposed rice sacks. ::Keen
