Udaipur resident Shriyans Bhandari has been featured in Forbes India magazine for his venture GreenSole. This firm recycles discarded shoes and converts them into slippers that are then given to tribal kids. GreenSole sold upcycled over 35000 shoes in 2017.

Udaipur resident Shriyans Bhandari, a marathon enthusiast, moved to Mumbai in 2012 for his undergraduate studies. There he met Ramesh Dhami from Uttaranchal. Bhandari used to meet Dhami at Priyadarshini Park, Napean Sea road and they would train under a coach for marathon. Both ended up discarding 3-4 pairs of shoes every year.

Dhami picked up one such shoe with sole intact and added rubber strip to make a slipper out of it. When Bhandari saw this, he immediately felt that idea could be scaled up. Dhami and Bhandari started in 2013 and put up a box at Priyadarshini Park to collect discarded shoes. They soon created refurbished slipper/shoes out of these and donated them. The duo were selected by Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad as India’s Top Innovators and also won design and sustainability challenges at IIT Bombay and other National fora.

In 2015, Dhami and Bhandari registered GreenSole. Their first big order came from CSR wing of realty major JLL that asked for upcycling 500 pairs.

From a start of 500 pairs, GreenSole upcycled 35000 shoes in 2017 and targets 70000 in 2018. Their revenues in 2016-17 stood at Rs 71 Lakhs.

Article on GreenSole will appear in the 8-June edition of Forbes India.