A Blunt Story, the winner of the Global Change Awards, and how their approach redefines sustainable footwear with plant-based materials.
Each year, an estimated 24 billion pairs of shoes are discarded globally, most destined for landfills, polluting the planet and breaking down slowly. It was one of these landfills, the Ghazipur landfill, that heavily inspired A Blunt Story, a footwear brand “born directly in response to the overwhelming waste and pollution crisis in India,” says founder Chandi Batra.
A Blunt Story was named to reflect its unapologetically direct approach. “We’re cutting through the noise and not shying away from calling out the elephant in the room,” she says. “It’s about telling the real story of materials and the harm they cause—no sugarcoating, no half-measures.”
It’s hard to ignore the elephant when it is on your doorstep: on Batra’s way to work each day, she would pass the Ghazipur landfill–a huge waste-pile in Delhi, India and see in it the change that needed to happen. A Blunt Story is that change–creating sandals constructed using their two proprietary materials: UNCRUDE® and UNWASTE™. Developed over several years with local partners, the footwear is fully traceable and the materials are entirely free of petroleum-based plastics—a rarity in a category dominated by EVA, TPU, synthetic rubber, and PU foams.
“It’s about telling the real story of materials and the harm they cause—no sugarcoating, no half-measures.”
Founder, Chandi Batra
Footwear is the planet’s 7th biggest polluter of micro-plastics, and when developing the brand, it was important to Batra to tackle this from the start “From day one, we knew we didn’t want to make footwear that ended up in landfills, or added to micro-plastic pollution in such a big way. Neither did we want to use materials that were harmful to the makers”, she says. “We felt we needed to literally change things from the ground up – starting with the materials.”
Created from agricultural waste and bio-based oils, UNCRUDE® forms the foundation of A Blunt Story’s solution, referring to the plant-based, plastic-free outsole technology that reduces emissions by over 50% compared to conventional soles. The mid-soles, made from 96% bio-based materials, cut emissions by over 70%. Meanwhile, UNWASTE™ addresses the plastic foams typically hidden between the upper and lining, replacing them with a cushioning developed alongside partners in Panipat, who process post-consumer waste–much of it arriving from the West–that can’t be segregated or recycled and is at the end of its life. “Because we start with waste, it cuts the carbon footprint dramatically by about 90% lower emissions compared to standard foams that are still made using virgin plastics,” she says.
“Because we start with waste, it cuts the carbon footprint dramatically by about 90% lower emissions compared to standard foams that are still made using virgin plastics.”
The Blunt Story’s technologies are being catalysed by their recent achievement of being one of the winners of The Global Change Award– an acknowledgement and acceleration program by the H&M Foundation to support changemakers in the textile industry to reach net-zero by 2050.
“Beyond the recognition, the award gives us visibility, funding, and access to a network that supports scale,” Batra says. The team plans to use the grant to deepen research into circular design. Currently, with only part-time access to manufacturing facilities, the funding will help them acquire dedicated lab equipment, expand their team, and accelerate efforts to bring UNCRUDE® and UNWASTE™ to a wider market. “For a small team building from the ground up, it’s not just a milestone—it’s momentum.”
The expansion has already started. Along with the brand’s five unisex designs such as In It Together, a classic black sandal with their signature cork-like base, and A Deconstructed Dream, a slider style with a slingback panel and bungee string detailing; they recently showcased three more at Lakme Fashion Week, “which carried our material narrative further,” she says.
The choice of sandals, Batra explains, was not just for material experimentation, but also because they serve India’s hot-weather market more appropriately than closed shoes, which are often designed with Western seasons and materials in mind.
“Too often, footwear designed in the West is made from materials suited to Western climates—mostly plastics that trap heat in.”
“Too often, footwear designed in the West is made from materials suited to Western climates—mostly plastics that trap heat in,” she says. Inspired by the 90s and early naughties, when “everyone wore sandals (called floaters)”, A Blunt Story creates breathable footwear better suited to the climate, but also with a bigger message, referring to the designs and their materials as “unyielding inspired by brutalism.”
“Like post-war brutalist architecture designed to serve its communities, our approach to design addresses the natural and social resources that are consumed in the process,” she says. The designs go against the grain and the system, to stand out against other competitors for the better.
Not stopping at sandals, the team plans to expand into outdoor footwear, pursue partnerships, and build on the materials they’ve already created. The larger ambition is to scale their work with UNCRUDE® and UNWASTE™, adapting it to be “tailored to different geographies and end uses,” she says.
“The broader vision is to help reshape how the industry thinks about performance, waste, and material value and people within these systems…and rebuild better from the ground up. Always with rigour, and always with care.”
All images courtesy of A Blunt Story.
