As part of LEAF’s initiative to make Zappos a more environmentally friendly workplace, we hosted an Earth Day event for our employees on Tuesday, April 17th. We asked several local and non-local vendors to participate by spreading awareness about how easy and fun it is to become eco-friendly, and wow, did our vendors surely step up to the plate! Earth Day was such a success that we’ve decided to make this an annual event with the goal to make each year even better than the previous!

When we first reached out to our vendors, their responses were overwhelming! They were thrilled to hear the Zappos was starting its journey to become environmentally friendly, and they were even more excited to be a part of it. The vendors that attended our event included: KEEN, prAna, Patagonia, Whole Foods, Vegas Roots Community Gardens, Lunas Recycling, Sierra Nevada, BottleHood, Springs Preserve, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, Southwest Gas, and RTC.

prAna did something special for all Zappos employees that deserves a special shout out. Not only did they showcase their use of sustainable materials in their products, demonstrated how they’ve eliminated poly bags in their warehouse, and discussed their initiatives with clean energy; they surprised us by offsetting all of our Las Vegas employees’ carbon emissions! This means that 1,300 of us will be carbon neutral for the entire month of April!* Thank you prAna for caring so much about the environment and truly WOWing all of us!

Not all of our Earth Day vendors could make a physical appearance at Zappos HQ. However, they still showed their support for our event and sent out information about their eco-friendly products and sustainable initiatives, prizes for us to raffle off, and even coupons specifically made for our employees. These vendors included: ChicoBags, EcoLunchBoxes, Klean Kanteen, Semilla, People Towels, Vessel Drinkware, and Haiku Bags. 

One of our goals for our first annual Zappos Earth Day was to promote an eco-friendly change in the daily habits of at least one employee. With the help of our vendors that provided and demonstrated eco-friendly options and initiatives to our employees, I believe the event successfully achieved its goal! The immense turnout of curious Zappos employees also helped promote more green awareness. We really could not have pulled this event off without the help of all of our amazing vendors –THANK YOU!

That being said, it is my personal goal to make next year’s Zappos Earth Day even more successful!

*1,300 individual offsets would be the same as 117 cars removed from the road for a year, or carbon sequestered by 128 acres of trees, or removing the harmful effects from extracting 1392 barrels of oil.

Fans of Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes — a company that donates a pair of shoes to children for every pair of shoes sold — will be excited to hear that the company has joined the world’s green initiave and is creating an eco-friendly shoe line. Toms has partnered with Whole Foods Market to design an exclusive line of vegan shoes which will be sold at Whole Foods Markets around the country. This new style of the alpargata is made of organic cotton, non-leather interior, and recycled rubber from tires for the sole.

The collaboration with the organic foods giant will help to broaden Toms consumer market, as well as further educate the consumer about Toms Shoes mission to help shod impoverished children in third world countries around the globe. Mycoskie told FashionWeekDaily and Blogger, “I wanted to find a way for more people to be able to truly understand the core of Toms Shoes. With the launch of the eco-friendly collection, and our partnership with Whole Foods market, we will be able to reach even more people, and ultimately give more children their first pair of shoes.”

Toms Shoes are the perfect trifecta for the fashionable folk, they are comfortable to wear, a relaxed fashionable style and now, socially-aware. Its a win-win for everyone.