Pet owners exercise two to four times more than other individuals. However, the essential frequency of walking, both for the pet and the owner, decreases when dealing with a pet with reduced mobility. In the city of São Paulo alone, there are approximately 10 million animals facing this issue. Decathlon, the world's largest sports goods brand, which brings sports into the lives of thousands of people, recognized this underserved demographic—pet owners with physical mobility challenges.

The brand aimed to ensure that these animals are no longer restricted from enjoying what they love most: accompanying their owners. This restriction often results in owners refraining from participating in sports because they cannot bring their pets along. Decathlon sought to democratize sports for everyone, using this concept as a tool for inclusion.

How to encourage sports in people's lives? Certainly in many ways, but when you bring a pet into the sport, the owner comes along. Our idea starts with recycling plastic bottles discarded in parks and turning them into sports prosthetics for pets. We created the Decathlon Station, where people can deposit plastic bottles to be recycled and turned into 3D-printed prosthetics in real time. With this, the brand not only encourages pet owners to exercise with their best friends but also supports sustainability, helping to preserve parks. Thus, we democratize sports for pet owners with mobility issues.

Given the scenario where pet owners cannot engage in sports with their pets, impacting both their lives, our strategy was to leverage the brand's core message of bringing sports into the lives of thousands of people, promoting and democratizing sports. We combined this with the issue of sustainability in public parks and proposed creating a station where plastic bottles discarded in parks could be recycled into sports prosthetics for pets. As part of the strategy, we also invited the community of pets with disabilities to participate in the initiative. Thus, this idea becomes a tool for inclusion for pet owners with mobility issues, while also contributing to park cleanliness as a residual benefit.

Starting from the insight that Decathlon is a brand that encourages sports for everyone, even for dogs who are natural athletes, we invited pet owners with disabilities to go to Villa Lobos Park, one of the largest parks in São Paulo, to visit the Decathlon Station, a recycling station with an included 3D printer.

Through these machines, we established our method of manufacturing the pet wheelchairs. The recycling machine was responsible for the initial stages of production, recycling the filament, while the 3D printer printed the parts of the wheelchair. In addition to recycling and printing, the Decathlon Station became a collection point for plastic bottles, from which we extracted the plastic materials that were transformed into filament.

In addition to encouraging owners to help their best friends, Decathlon also promoted sustainability, helping to preserve public parks.

100% of the dogs that participated are now running again. For each dog that came back, a tutor started to run as well. Made as a pilot in one of São Paulo's main parks, for just a few dogs, now the wheelchair designed by Decathlon is available to all of the 10 million dogs with disabilities in the almost 6.000 cities in Brazil. Until now the Decathlon wheelchair for dogs received a 4,8 rating on e-commerce, 76% of positive comments and 94% positive reviews from owners. And if you go to the Villa Lobos park, you don't see more plastic bottles on the ground anymore.