Zero Footmarks, India’s first footwear project that creates value for used footwear, launched in Kerala

India’s VKC plans to extend this project throughout the whole of India including the remotest villages in India, the way it launched India’s first ShopLocal programme in the country to bring back footfalls in the neighbourhood shops after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Zero Footmarks by India’s VKC is a unique project in India and probably the first in Asia that collects post-consumer footwear from the common man and helps them create value for the society. 

Zero Footmarks by India’s VKC is a project that creates responsible citizens and it streamlines a new responsibility in creating a conscious customer. The project was conceived by the Managing Director of India’s VKC, Sri. VKC Razak in response to a letter to the Footwear Manufacturers in Kerala by the Executive Director of Suchitwa Mission, Kerala, Sri U. V. Jose IAS (Rtd.), on the need for Footwear Waste Management in December 2024.

The project is a very simple exercise – the customer can buy any brand from India’s VKC from the listed shop in the neighbourhood and India’s VKC will take the responsibility of disposing of the used footwear of the customer responsibly. One post-consumer footwear can be returned only for one footwear purchase of any brand from India’s VKC.

The collected post-consumer footwear is then picked up by a responsible partner and it is recycled if it is fit for recycling or if it is not recyclable, it is disposed of responsibly.

Zero Footmarks is India’s first footwear project that creates a value for post-consumer footwear.

The project has multiple dimensions – the local neighbourhood shop keepers are engaged as collection centres, the customers are educated on the need to return their used footwear to these listed shops and about disposing post-consumer footwear responsibly, a sustainability focused partner is associated to pick up the post-consumer footwear from these shops, segregate it as recyclable and non-recyclable, the recyclable ones are recycled and the non-recyclable ones are disposed of responsibly.

Zero Footmarks project is an innovative project to create responsible citizens who are responsible for knowing where the post-consumer footwear is going as waste. This is a direction for the society to have a concern about how the waste generated is disposed of responsibly. 

As an innovative idea, the Zero Footmarks project also creates a productive thinking process regarding the waste disposal for children and the younger generation.

“Zero Footmarks is all about creating a Conscious Customer, who is concerned about the future of planet earth and how the consumption wastage is disposed of responsibly to have a cleaner planet for the generations to come”, said VKC Razak, Managing Director, India’s VKC.

Zero Footmarks project is focused on creating a good customer consciousness similar to the ShopLocal project rolled out by India’s VKC with the intention of bringing back the customers to the neighbourhood shops across India, in the aftermath of the COVID 19 pandemic. India’s VKC Shop local programme in 2021 engaged close to 2 lakh neighbourhood shops across India.

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