Natural Rubber Soles

What's in a Sole?

Suggies has always been about being environmentally conscious. We have always looked at all our products through the lens of how they impact our planet. We're happy to share that your feet will get closer to nature in our new outsole!

We've incorporated natural rubber and rice husk into our compound.

As a brand, we have always strived to be less reliant on petroleum products, and we are very proud of this accomplishment. Most shoe companies moved to synthetic rubber over the years due to lower raw material prices and more efficiencies in mass production. A win for the bottom line for companies but not the planet as converting polymers into rubber comes with a high environmental footprint.

We worked diligently behind the scenes for two years (we navigated through covid & numerous supply chain challenges) to get this compound right for our signature Suggies outsole.

Our natural rubber comes from Brazil. The Amazon is the only place on our planet where rubber trees grow wild. This sticky, milky substance gets harvested from rubber trees by making incisions into the bark and collecting it in vessels. This process is known as rubber tapping. Rubber tapping does not damage the forest, as it does not require cutting down trees to extract the latex.

The main advantage of natural rubber over synthetic rubber is that it has a low environmental impact because the harvesting process doesn't require heavy machinery; workers, not machines, harvest it.

We mix in rice husk to improve the performance of the sole. One hundred twenty million tons of rice husk are dumped into landfills yearly. Resourceful manufacturers learned rice husks could be recycled, processed, and combined with natural rubber to make flexible, durable, eco-friendly soles using less fossil fuel.

Try a pair of our sustainable flats here

Learning more here about how to find  sustainably made shoes