This is the 81st article in Bears Doing Big Things, a weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni.
Hailing from the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Retail & Ecommerce list of individuals “reinventing how we shop,” Chloe Songer ‘10 is doing precisely that. Songer is the CEO and co-founder of Thousand Fell, the first recyclable sneaker company, and SuperCircle, a novel technology enabling brands and consumers to make waste circular through reuse.
Songer’s passion for solving the climate crisis took off when she joined Leadership her sophomore year and became a pioneer member of the Environmental Committee. “In 2008, we didn’t really call it climate change,” she said. “The concept of ‘global warming’ was very new, it wasn’t well-received, and it wasn’t something people knew a lot about. This was pre-Greta Thunberg and climate walkouts.”
When Songer was a sophomore, the Committee worked with janitorial staff to change their contract and create the first recycling program on campus. In her junior year, they collaborated with an outside company to develop a solar panel proposal for M-A. “It didn’t get accepted, but it was pretty cool. I got to talk to the city council and think about what it would look like to get funding for solar,” she said.
With a professor at Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, the Committee developed a curriculum to teach high school students about climate change and behavior change related to sustainability. Songer presented the curriculum to students at M-A and around the U.S.
Songer took her activism to the international level her senior year as one of four students selected to represent the U.S. in the 2009 UNICEF Children Climate Change Forum. A total of 160 students from 40 countries came together in Copenhagen, Denmark, to create a policy platform and present it to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
“It was the right place, right time for me,” Songer said. “The Bay Area was a little bit more liberal and was willing to dive into this new environmental movement early. It was pretty exciting to have local parents and professors from Stanford willing to help us as students.”
In her senior year, Songer was voted “Tree Hugger,” a superlative created for her. “The other person who got voted was a boy who was literally least likely to hug a tree—he drove a pickup truck—but it was funny, and he was a nice guy. This gives some perspective on how, even though a global political movement was starting to think about climate change and man-made emissions at that time, it wasn’t taken seriously culturally,” she said.
While developing new policies and curricula, the Environmental Committee also hosted fun events on campus. “We did a head-shaving campaign for oil spills. We put a tarp on the Green and basically challenged guys to shave off their hair so we could donate it. I remember a couple of teachers did it too,” she said.
Songer worked on Barack Obama’s campaign as a youth advocate and poll worker but felt unsatisfied by his climate policies. “When he didn’t sign the climate accord in Copenhagen in 2009, I was devastated. I was truly like, ‘What the hell?’ There are a million reasons he didn’t—and I don’t blame Obama—but as a young person with exposure to global climate policy, I started to question, ‘Does activism work?’” she said.
Although Songer began building a career in climate activism in high school, she didn’t have clear next steps. “I was so focused on climate activism and policy, and I was actively doing it. I was considering continuing down that path, but I was also really focused on art and obsessed with fashion. I used to sketch and draw designs, and I’ve collected every Vogue magazine for 15 years,” she said.
She also wasn’t sure how to make a career out of her interest in fashion. “That’s not something that takes place in the Bay Area, but some part of me dreamed of being a fashion designer,” Songer said.
After graduating from M-A, Songer attended Duke University, where she majored in economics. “I realized that I needed to understand the way that our capital systems worked in order to be able to make change. You need people with money to support the movements and initiatives you believe in. Economics felt like a good base major that wouldn’t close any doors,” she said.
Songer also took courses in climate science and global economic policy at Duke. She stumbled upon a love for Chinese while fulfilling her language requirement. “I already did AP Spanish and wanted to try a new language. I only needed to do two semesters, so I thought I would just take the intro classes and move on. I found that Chinese is an incredibly beautiful language in terms of the characters, handwriting, and the intonation of the language,” she said.
Songer ended up minoring in Chinese and interning and studying abroad in China. “At the time, China’s economy was opening up, and it’s also really important in terms of global climate policy,” she said.
After graduating from Duke, she moved to Shanghai, for a job in business development at Alexander Wang Group. “I lived really close to the supply chain and began understanding what it means to manufacture, source, and make goods,” she said.
Songer then returned to the U.S. and worked as a product merchandiser at Gap. “I was responsible for budgeting and choosing products. I would look at all the data and see what was trending where to decide how much product to manufacture,” she said.
In 2018, Songer and her co-founder, Stuart Ahlum, launched the first recyclable sneaker company, Thousand Fell.
As an entirely circular company, every component of a product goes into making new products. Consumers send back their sneakers—even from other brands—to receive store credit and reduce waste.
When choosing a fashion item to create sustainably, Songer and Ahlum landed on shoes because of their disproportionate damage to the environment. While a cotton T-shirt is easy to recycle, shoes are uniquely challenging because of their complicated components. “The main components in footwear are leather, rubber, and plastics. Leather is mummified with heavy metals and carcinogens, and rubber has added plasticizers. All of this stuff is just sitting in our landfills, not biodegrading,” she said.
The pair also selected sneakers because of their high-frequency replacement and difficulty being donated. “This is what people consider basic in their wardrobe; everybody needs a pair, but they replace them at least every year,” she said. Thousand Fell’s first shoe was a plain white walking sneaker.
While building Thousand Fell, Songer and Ahlum realized they could help other brands become more sustainable through recycling. Their second company, SuperCircle, accomplishes this goal.
“It’s been awesome to build our team with people who want to center their careers around the environment and want to work in jobs that are going to help with the climate transition of our economy,” Songer said.
When products are sent back to be recycled, the technology identifies and sorts the textile materials. SuperCircle has partnered with over 40 brands, including GUESS, J.Crew, and SKIMS. “We’re creating all of this waste in this industry that I love. When you’re done with a product, it doesn’t go anywhere. I love fashion and clothing; this is what makes me happy. Yet, we’re creating such an impact,” Songer said.
SuperCircle is a member of American Circular Textiles, a lobbying group that recently worked on California State S.B. 707. Passed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the bill will hold producers of textile waste responsible for paying for the “entire lifecycle of their products and textiles,” including recycling, repair, and reuse. “We worked really closely with American Circular Textiles to get changes approved in the bill. It’s pretty cool to now be making changes back home in California,” Songer said.
Thousand Fell is growing its base and expanding to streetwear. “I spend a lot of time thinking about how to market and teach people if you want a white sneaker, you don’t have to go with a big box, off-the-shelf white sneaker,” she said.
Songer is continuing to build sustainability in the apparel market. “We are teaching people, companies, and governments about circularity and recycling. We need to act now. A huge portion of it is convincing people to do it today and not wait three years,” she said.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to marry my passion for activism and climate conservation with my love for fashion. I couldn’t work this hard for this long without a focus on impact and building a better tomorrow,” Songer said.
Songer’s advice to current M-A students: “Get comfortable networking and intern in as many roles as frequently as you can. Ask people about their journey and how they got to where they are today, and start to understand the paths and opportunities you could look for yourself. Put yourself out there, take whatever job you can—even if it’s unglamorous—and you will learn something valuable.”
To aspiring climate change solvers: “Get involved locally—at M-A, your future college, and with city and state organizations focused on legislation. Many of the necessary policies needed to support climate reform happen at the city and state level. Even before you are 18, you can start to learn about legislation coming down the pipeline and join advocacy groups to campaign for changes you want to see.”
For 30% off Thousand Fell products, use code MABEARS30 at thousandfell.com.
