What are our missions (1)?

Our main motivation: everyone at home and the hippos will be well guarded (our way of saying no pangolins on our plates if you hadn't understood)

As we've discussed in this article , MEEKO was driven by a deep connection to our planet's wildlife. No one is unaware today of the massive disappearance of species and we want to fight so as not to have to explain to our offspring what a sea turtle was. Protecting this animal life amounts to protecting its habitat and therefore all threatened natural areas, everything is linked. This will always be our primary goal and our “performance” indicators will be above all focused on our impact on the NGOs with whom we work and the various projects that have been carried out.

In other words, our mission is to contribute to the environmental cause, in particular to the preservation of threatened natural areas and the animal species they shelter. We hope to achieve this through commitment (human, financial) and positive communication. To do this, we market sneakers that you can be proud to wear for a long time and support NGOs in the field. All while minimizing the harmful effects inevitably linked to our activity.

Sell ​​a lot of sneakers but not too many? What do we mean by sustainable sneakers?

Producing and selling cleaner sneakers is a means to our ends. We could just as well have applied our approach to socks. Despite everything, the error would be to concentrate our efforts on the associative aspect and to neglect the most important: the product. Because to carry out this global mission, it is first essential to offer the best basketball possible, consistent for our core target in order to grow our community thanks to this loss leader, to make you want to follow us, to support us, to take part with us in the fight for the preservation of these threatened natural spaces. We need to sell sneakers in order to be able to grow our brand sufficiently (ie to be able to make a living from it while having the resources to set up all of our support projects for NGOs), without overproducing, without aggressively encouraging consumption. with new models every month and sponsored content all over the place. If we don't sell, we die and it will be difficult to set up anything, at least not with MEEKO (we will try to make socks as a result). So how do you go about selling? In our view, it is necessary to meet a need with the best possible product. A product that meets your expectations when you want to change sneakers for a more responsible pair, without destroying your sex appeal or your wallet. We want to offer young urbanites the most durable basketball possible. Sustainable already in design (this is perhaps the most important), sourcing (choice of raw materials), production, end of life. Finding the perfect balance between these different stages in the life of basketball is a permanent, tiring, but exciting job. It's the only way to offer sneakers that we are proud to wear (because we find them beautiful and because they are in line with our values) for a long time (because we never get tired of them not and because they are comfortable and solid). For more details on the sustainable aspect in our product, subscribe to our newsletter and we will keep you informed of the next articles on this subject (which will be published in the next few weeks).

Be a sustainable brand in 2020

We talked about sustainability at the product level. In order to minimize the harmful effects inevitably linked to our activity, we want to see sustainability in the broad sense and try to do the best possible in all areas. We expect this to be more than a selling point put forward by emphasizing European production or a recycled rubber sole. This is a mentality that must apply to our entire company, as a whole. It is in this way that we will distinguish the brands that have been built around this pillar from those that react to ecology, whether they are looking for an emerging market or subject to a real take. of consciousness.

So what do we mean by overall sustainability? It is true that the major impact will be linked to the product, how its raw materials are made, how is it transported to our French warehouse and then to the end customer, how does it end up when it can no longer be used, etc. . The bulk of the work is here, it's our main challenge and the most difficult. This is where most of the more responsible fashion brands go all out. Despite everything, we would like to go a little further, whether we stay small or become bigger. How we move, how we manage our waste, how we eat, how we store our data, how we make our team more fulfilled, how we build if we open a shop (we can dream), etc.

These are reflections that we want to have in parallel with the activity of producing/selling sneakers, as a brand but also as people. It is not a question of being perfect, we will never be, but simply of doing a little better as soon as we have the opportunity and that it does not (too) endanger the health of the company. . This is how we can establish overall brand consistency. This goes back to our vision (for a bit of a review it's happening here ), that every step counts and we shouldn't be rigid about compromises. We will soon unveil our greenmap for the coming year and keep you informed of our progress, our difficulties too (you may have brilliant ideas to help us move forward).

In the following article, we will continue to detail the title of our mission . We will talk in particular about our commitments, whether human or financial, in order to help the local NGOs with whom we work. We will also discuss positive communication and how we hope to be able to influence as many people as possible to move towards a more responsible way of life.

Thanks for reading. 😊

See you soon,

The MEEKO team