Surefoot Giving:

The ski industry operates in a fragile environment. When companies not only make changes in how they impact the planet, but give to others at the same time, it gives us cause to reflect and look at what all of us are doing in this industry as a whole. We must recognize and applaud these efforts and follow their lead. Surefoot, the biggest supplier of custom ski boots, is minimizing their footprint as well as giving to those in need.

Surefoot has 24 custom ski boot retail stores world-wide, and they manufacture tens of thousands of custom liners for their full line of ski boots. They also are continually upgrading clients to custom liners thus needing to dispose of the old liners. Ski boot liners take up to two thousand years to biodegrade in a landfill, so since that was not an acceptable solution to Surefoot they began to look at other options.

“We live, work and play in the mountains,” said Surefoot President Bob Shay. “We have always been focused on keeping things clean not only for us, but for our children and their children.” These were the beliefs that let them to team up with SAVEarth—an organization dedicated to repurposing salvageable waste to good causes. In the case of Surefoot they are shipping used liners to underdeveloped countries with cold climates such as Nepal and Mongolia where there is great need for warm, durable footwear.

Surefoot went one step further than just donating old liners, they paired the liners with an inexpensive water-resistant rubber over boot so that the people in Nepal and Mongolia would have a durable insulated boot to protect them from the severe winter conditions they face.

Surefoot bears the cost of re-purposing the used liners and shipping them to designated regions in Nepal and Mongolia. It keeps the liners from being piled into landfills and it provides warm winter boots to people in need.

For more information on Surefoot, please visit www.surefoot.com