Allbirds is an American public benefit company originating in New Zealand that sells footwear and apparel, co-founded in 2014 by Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger.

[25] Allbirds leaned further into its brand as sustainable by collaborating with Adidas to create a sneaker "that promises to have almost no carbon footprint" and by focusing on environmental impact in its advertising.

[12] According to a GlobalData consumer panel, the company began a decline in annual sales by 2022 as its brand was seen as part of 2010s Silicon Valley attire and its shoes' lack of durability became better known.

[26][27] Other brands, such as Atoms and Veja, were claimed to be taking some of Allbirds' market share as early as 2020 in a Wall Street Journal article by Jacob Gallagher.

[28] The 2022 release of the Tree Flyer ended a period of experimentation with the company's offerings, including leggings, jackets, and dresses, which were unpopular with its customer base.

Suzanne Kapner of The Wall Street Journal reported that "Other types of apparel that Allbirds introduced such as $250 puffer jackets and $88 dresses, also made from merino wool, didn't attract customers and had to be discounted.

The company then undertook a transformation plan to adhere to its original product lines while taking cost-saving measures along its supply chain.

[31][32] To recover from the loss in sales and investor confidence, the company began to sell its products at big-box, brick and mortar Nordstrom and Dick's Sporting Goods stores between April and June 2022.

[34][29] The shareholders alleged that Allbirds' strategy was misleading, leading investors to buy shares at artificially-inflated prices and constituting securities fraud.

[50] After settling the case in the Northern District of California, Allbirds brought a similar lawsuit in the same court against Austrian footwear maker Giesswein Walkwaren.

[53] Later that week, Zwillinger and Brown wrote a Medium article inviting Amazon to use some of its materials to "jointly make a major dent in the fight against climate change.

[45] In an article for The Fashion Law, both the case against Walkwaren and the instance of Amazon's shoes were suggested to not be overtly violating Allbirds' trade dress, stating that "it is worth noting that there are, in fact, notable design differences between the various brands sneakers.

[57][56][58] Other shoe components, such as laces and insoles, are made from recycled plastic bottles, castor beans, plant starch, wood pulp, and Tencel.

"[68] Journalism professor Myles Ethan Lascity describes the shoes' sustainable framing as "anti-fashion," referring to a style of dress that is indifferent to trends in fashion.

[69] Other observers, such as Ian Servantes of Inverse, critiqued the shoes for gentrifying the sneaker market historically associated with Black culture in the United States.

[75][76] Judge Cathy Seibel dismissed the case in 2022 on the grounds that the company adheres to the Federal Trade Commission's Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, and depictions of happy sheep in advertising were puffery.

[77][72] In the University of Kentucky's Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law blog, Abigail Barford wrote that although demands for corporate transparency have increased, few standards have been implemented at the governmental level.

[78] Ciara Peacock of the West Virginia University College of Law writes about the case in a discussion of American courts' tendencies to give corporate carbon offsets and credits a high bar for legal criticism, noting that cases charging corporations with unrealistic use of carbon offsets (such as Dwyer) overwhelmingly end in motions to dismiss.

[79] In Dwyer, Peacock wrote that there is no consistent legal precedent for when a company should begin to measure carbon output; this allows corporations to publicize incomplete depictions of their supply chains.

[82] Amanda Schwaben of Case Western Reserve University School of Law said that Allbirds' framing as a public benefit company is a means of attracting investment with dubious returns.

Congressman Jared Huffman of California's 2nd Congressional District held a conference with Zwillinger in 2020 where he criticized B Corp status and the 45Q tax credit, which grants a break to corporations that practice carbon capture, for being functionally ineffective.

[87] Former United States President Barack Obama has worn the shoes on a number of occasions, and a 2019 Esquire article reported that he wore a pair at a basketball game.