Running shoes You Never Own?

Running shoes You Never Own?

Circular by design

How do you make a truly circular product? I’m not talking about a plastic bottle that becomes a fleece or a park bench… but a product that is recycled into itself again. And wouldn’t it be even better if the raw material was somehow “green” by itself?

On Running’s Cyclon™ CloudNeo running shoe does both of these things in a product I would love to own…

But wait… You don’t actually own the CloudNeo – it is a subscription service that you pay for monthly, and return the shoes for a new pair as often as you need to. (Ok, maybe not as often as you might like, but somewhere after 3 and 6 months of use).

To get your pair of running shoes, you “subscribe” on the On Running website. The cost as of today is $29.99 per month or 320 SEK. Your first pair comes to you in the mail and you start running… and running… and when the shoes are worn out, you order a new pair online. They arrives in a nice shipping bag, you swap out the old pair for the new one, send the old one back – and off you run in your new shoes!

The pricing totals out to about the same as what an avid runner would spend on running shoes annually – say two pairs a year.

Solving the Problems

The CloudNeo is unique in its utilisation of one material for all parts of the shoe. A normal running shoe is made up of multiple parts, each sourced from a different raw material, making recycling it into its component parts near impossible. There’s the upper, the mid-sole, the outer sole, the inner sole, the tongue, the laces… and often layer upon layer of materials for each part.

The CloudNeo starts – and finishes – with one raw material – castor beans. Yes, you read that right. According to the On Running website, castor beans provide both the oil for the PA11 used in the upper and a polyamide compound called “pebax” for the bottom. Using just one material means that the shoe can be recycled… into itself. The subscription model means that the shoes come back to the process again and again.

Creating a New Business Model

Of course, if you walk down any street today, you will surely see a few pairs of On Running shoes on the feet of those passing by – their distinctive shoes have become extremely popular over the past few years.

That said, I would guess that 99% of the current On Running wearers don’t know about the CloudNeo and their new sustainability model. The problem is that selling a subscription model means cutting out the middlemen (the distributors) and the sales channel (the retailers).

The CloudNeo, by definition, has to be a DTC (direct to consumer) product because of the circularity in the sales model. Without pricing incentives of some kind, no retailer wants to sell a perpetual subscription that won’t bring the customer back into the shop…. which leaves On Running without its traditional sales channel – and no way for a potential customer to even try the shoe on.

On Running also seems to hint on its website that the CloudNeo will not be the only Cyclon™ product – that there are perhaps more in development, including a t-shirt made of the same bean-based material. However, the t-shirt is not part of the circular subscription program, highlighting that the costs of circularity probably won’t make sense on low-end products.

I can’t wait to see what happens in the circular space! This shoe seems like a perfect first step (no pun intended).

(and just for reference, I do intend to subscribe, and will keep you posted!)