On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Alex Witty, an award-winning product designer who is passionate about motorsport, innovation and sustainable design, which may seem like a contradiction, but listen on to find out how these two things cross over.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Famous drivers are being called hypocrites for talking about environmental protection & sustainability while still driving. It’s clearly not a mix that’s gone well, but like all good things something needs to change. The waste of value and material when tyres are incinerated is ludicrous. It got me thinking that most sneaker soles are made of rubber, so I got the ball rolling.
• It’s been very difficult, but it would have been a lot harder 10-15 years ago. The new era of business is very eco-conscious, everyone’s got that on the agenda. The hardest thing has been getting access to the premium tyres that have been raced by the best in the world, but thankfully the big tyre manufacturers are really starting to push their sustainability & they see Compound as one of the vessels that will help clean up the industry and their act as they try to get into the circular economy.
• Our end goal is to start utilising waste road tyres as well, as the motorsport industry wastes around 600,000 tyres a year, which is a drop in the ocean compared to road tyres. But right now we have to focus on what we have control over.
• We’ve tried experimenting to create a rubber synthetic leather to make the body of the shoe, but it ended up being really heavy. It was entirely recycled but you wouldn’t want to wear them. So, we make the outsoles and keeping on iterating.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’m a byproduct of my parent, as we all are, but my Dad was a petrolhead & my Mum works with a rainforest conservation charity.’
‘1.5 billion road tyres are incinerated every year, in the UK we can’t put them in landfill which is great, but we pay other countries to take our waste who do who knows what with them.’
‘A lot of my dreaming comes from playing a lot of sport at a young age & being part of a team that had discipline and satisfaction of winning a game & a need to succeed.’
‘Once you start winning you want to win more & once you’re good at something your self-confidence & your belief in yourself improves.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Alex Witty in the founder of Compound Footwear, a revolutionary brand of footwear created from waste motorsport tyre rubber.

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ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS

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