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Spotted: Every year, 15 billion trees are cut down, destroying ecosystems, triggering biodiversity loss, and accelerating global warming. In the Amazon alone, deforestation amounted to nearly 11.6 thousand square kilometres in 2022. One Peru-based company is working to conserve the Amazon while promoting sustainable fashion.

Evea is a sustainable fashion company focused on responsible and inclusive production that contributes to conservation. Keeping forest conservation and fair trade in mind, the company produces shoes for companies that want to impact the planet and people positively.

Evea’s footwear and soles are made with an environmentally friendly material, wild rubber. To help conserve the Amazon forest, Evea seeks to promote organised harvesting and the ecological processing of the latex tree Shiringa that grows wild in the region. The tree has an internal milky liquid called latex, which, through an old artisan process, is converted into rubber sheets without cutting down the tree. Unlike practices that cause deforestation, this method harms no animals, is pollution-free, and contributes to the economic empowerment of Amazonian communities and families.

The company works with Amazonian families, leveraging their ancestral knowledge to build a business that offers the community an income from their environment that doesn’t involve cutting down the trees.

Helping indigenous communities and conservation go hand in hand. Springwise has spotted many innovations looking to help these communities thrive, like a blended finance approach that could help protect the Amazon and improve the lives of local people.

Written By: Anam Alam