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Orba Shoes Review: Sustainable and Ethically Sourced Chemical Free Shoes

Orba Shoes

This report documents what Orba Shoes publishes about its ownership and supply chain — see the sourcing and transparency sections below. Orba Shoes’s supply-chain transparency is rated 3 out of 5.

Orba Shoes’s product range has not been scanned product-by-product to the Throne Standard, so no whole-catalogue fibre percentage is shown here — a headline fibre figure is only published once 100% of a catalogue has been read.

2026-08-04

The full style-by-style breakdown for Orba Shoes is being added.

About Orba Shoes

DOCUMENTED FACTS: Orba is a Certified B Corporation (B Lab, certified Feb 2022); GOTS-certified cotton laces/threads, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 aglets, and EN 13432/ASTM D 6400 certified biodegradable heel counter are stated on the brand’s materials page; its key supplier meets the BSCI code of conduct; and Orba funds International Labour Organisation (ILO)-designed training programmes for smaller, no
Orba Shoes are designed in New Zealand and manufactured in Indonesia. Multiple independent and brand sources state Orba works with a network of small Indonesian suppliers, including family-run traditional flax weavers, a natural plant-based dyer, a bio-sole (outsole) manufacturer and a main assembly factory; several press sources describe the uppers as hand-woven in Bali using traditional looms. Orba states its key supplier meets the international Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) code of conduct. A specific factory name/city was not publicly documented in the sources reviewed.
Orba Shoes is an independent New Zealand footwear start-up based on the Kāpiti Coast (Paraparaumu/Waikanae), Aotearoa New Zealand, with no parent company documented. It was co-founded around 2020 by Kāpiti-based entrepreneur Greg Howard and UK-born, Bali-based footwear veteran Marshall Westlake, who together developed the plant-based sneaker during the 2020 lockdown period; sustainability advisor Gillian Boucher joined as co-founder in mid-2020. The company’s own team page lists five co-founders: Gillian Boucher, Marshall Westlake, Greg Howard, Scott Anderson and Sam Marshall. Orba launched its flagship “Ghost” sneaker in September 2021.
Orba Shoes is a real, currently-trading, legitimate business. As of July 2026 its official store (orbashoes.eco) is live and actively selling sneakers (Ghost models around $149.50 NZD plus Development Edition offers), with working cart/checkout, multiple payment methods, a contact phone/email, active social media, recent 2025-dated promotions, and recent blog/journal content. It is a real footwear company (not to be confused with same-name entities in other industries) and is verified via the independent B Lab directory, PitchBook, LinkedIn and multiple NZ news outlets (NZ Herald, RNZ, Otago Daily Times, The Spinoff, NBR). Note: the NBR headline “here for a good time, not a long time” refers to the shoe’s biodegradable end-of-life design philosophy, not to the company folding.
Orba Shoes is a slow-fashion, small-batch sustainable brand, not fast fashion. It sells a very narrow range (essentially one core “Ghost” sneaker model in limited colourways) rather than high-volume seasonal drops, took nearly five years of R&D to develop the biodegradable materials system, and works with small traditional Indonesian weavers/dyers. Its entire positioning is around durability-in-use plus end-of-life biodegradation rather than disposable trend-driven volume.
Certifications: Orba Shoes is a Certified B Corporation, certified 28 February 2022 via B Lab Australia & New Zealand and listed in the official B Lab Global directory (reported B Impact score of 98.9). Component-level certifications stated on Orba’s materials page: GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified cotton for the laces and threads; OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification for the cellulose acetate aglets (lace tips); and the bioplastic heel counter certified to the biodegradability requirements of EN 13432 and ASTM D 6400. Orba’s key supplier is BSCI-compliant. Orba does NOT hold a whole-product GOTS, Fair Trade, European Flax or full-compostability certification; the brand explicitly states full compostability certification is a future goal, not a current achievement..
Orba Shoes holds the following certifications: Orba Shoes is a Certified B Corporation, certified 28 February 2022 via B Lab Australia & New Zealand and listed in the official B Lab Global directory (reported B Impact score of 98. Beyond any paper certification, our scan of 4 Orba Shoes styles found 100.0% is 100% plant fibre, which is the measurable material fact behind Orba Shoes’s claims.
So many Orba Shoes basics are pure cotton, but Orba Shoes’s fitted and active styles typically add a small share of synthetic.
How we scan. Every figure on this page comes from the Throne Standard scan: we read the fibre composition off each live product on the brand’s own site, style by style, and count only single-fibre plant cloth (cotton, linen, hemp) as natural. Animal fibres such as wool, silk and cashmere and plastic-based synthetics such as polyester, nylon and elastane sit outside the plant-fibre figure, and regenerated fibres such as viscose, bamboo, modal and Tencel are counted as semi-synthetic. Percentages are calculated over the styles that state a composition; anything unlabelled is shown separately.

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