Sustainability

Chemical legislation in the EU is the most stringent in the world. For example, you may have heard about the REACH legislation, which covers a wide range of chemicals. We are members of the Chemicals Group, which is part of RISE. With the help of the Chemicals Group, we have developed a working method to control the use of chemicals, particularly in our own brand products. This involves contracting, information gathering, risk assessment and testing. For external brands, we mainly rely on contracting. While the European chemicals legislation is the basis for our work, in some cases we have gone a little further than that. We have developed a “blacklist” of chemicals, materials, production methods and products that we do not accept. In addition to this blacklist, we have a “phase out list” with mostly material that we want to phase out but have not found alternatives for yet. Finally, we have a list of “preferred attributes”. It contains third-party certifications and production methods that we believe can make a difference. We communicate all these lists to our suppliers, and, in the case of preferred attributes, we also give our customers the opportunity to use them as filters in the shop. We cannot claim with certainty that there are no hazardous chemicals in our products. But we put a lot of effort into avoiding it. 

From a climate perspective, all products have an impact, and the most important thing we can do to reduce our impact is to buy high quality products and use them for as long as possible. We strive to reduce the carbon footprint of our operations, but over 60% of the carbon footprint occurs in the manufacturing of the products, which is why it is vital that the products that are manufactured are really used. We have chosen not to create our own eco-label or environmental claim. Instead, we are setting up an opportunity for you as a consumer to filter for aspects that we believe are a better choice from an environmental perspective. Namely, third-party certifications and production methods. You can find them in the shop under the filtering options. 

China is one of the world's leading producers, both of textile products and of many other product categories in our range. In terms of transport, the sea transport from Asia is not as harmful as one might think. A truck transport from southern Europe can cause just as much emission. For the inbound transport of our own products, we have switched to using only sea transport, and we now use sea transport with biofuel. (The train transport that is available produces higher emissions of greenhouse gases and aviation produces much higher emissions). Some believe that only poor quality is produced in China. But that is not the case. It is possible to produce both low and high quality everywhere. The energy supply mix in China is very much based on fossil fuels. This is changing, but not at the pace that is needed. China has about the same share of fossil energy as the world on average. Even in Europe, many countries are at the same level, and some are above (for example Poland). A case can be made for moving production from China to Sweden, Norway, or Finland for better energy balance in production. But the question is how realistic that is. There are some textile factories left in our countries, and respect to them. But we don't think it is realistic to believe that we are going to move large-scale textile industries back to northern Europe. We will, however, try to encourage our producers to switch to renewable energy. This is one of the most important things we can do to achieve our goal of climate neutrality by 2028. And indeed, if we can in some way influence just a few investment decisions by our suppliers to have new factories opt for renewable energy – then that could be one of the most important things we can do for the climate. Then there is the issue of democracy and political developments in China. Developments have been moving in the wrong direction in recent years. However, we have not seen any deterioration in working conditions. As things stand, we will continue to trade products from China. We have sought to ensure that the products or raw materials do not come from the Xinjiang province and are otherwise monitoring developments. 

Yes, we do. We have chosen to become a member of the European organization Amfori BSCI and apply the code of conduct and tools developed by this organization as a basis for our work on social issues. A key element of the Amfori BSCI is that we, together with other members, share the responsibility for inspecting the factories. The platform allows us to monitor that all factories are inspected every year. The system is based on the idea of continuous improvement. 

We sometimes get this feedback from customers. It may be in the form of an email or a post on social media. Often there is a photo of an oversized box and a small product packed in that box. We're always left feeling a bit disappointed when we get this feedback, because it means we've kind of failed. But we always try to investigate it and find out what happened. Our warehouse is automated, but the packing process is manual and unfortunately the packers sometimes make mistakes. We are continuously working on choosing the right packaging. We are grateful for feedback in case you receive a shipment where the parcel is too large for the product. 

In fact, Outbound transport accounts for only about 4% of our climate emissions. While it is important that we keep these emissions to a minimum, the 4% does not make e-commerce a major climate villain. It would take large stores in many cities to offer our customers the same range in physical stores. These shops would need to be built, staffed, heated/cooled, and supplied with electricity. Then both staff and customers would have to get to the shops and the goods would also have to be shipped to the shops. Nowadays, we have a large warehouse instead, and the goods sent from the warehouse to our customers are packed together in large trucks and share a large part of the journey home to the customers. It's a fair question to ask what's best to transport. Is it the customer who must go to the goods (in the shop) or is it the goods that have to be transported to the customer? Return shipping is a problem for e-commerce. But it is also very important that our customers have the possibility to exchange the product if they are not satisfied. A product that a customer is not satisfied with might never be used. From a climate perspective, this is the worst possible outcome – a product that is produced and then not used. 

This is a reasonable question. The products account for more than 60% of our emissions. So, the more products we sell, the more emissions. It is also a challenging issue for a company to manage. We live in a market economy, and we all must respond to that in one way or another. As we see it, the most important thing is that we do not encourage overconsumption. Being outdoors involves a need for clothes, shoes, and equipment. But we don't want people to consume more than they need. If our promotional campaigns lead to us diverting sales from our competitors, we think that's OK, but if it leads to overconsumption, then that's a problem. It's not a problem if we sell a product cheaper than someone else. The product does not become more environmentally harmful because we charge a lower price. As mentioned, this is a difficult issue that we have discussed at length internally, not least within our marketing department. 

Renting and secondhand selling can help to ensure that products are used to their full potential and not discarded/recycled prematurely. We don't believe so much in renting clothes. At least not remotely, via e-commerce. When we ship a product once, the carbon footprint of transport is relatively small compared to the total carbon footprint of the product. But if the product is shipped several times during its lifetime, the carbon footprint of transport increases. When it comes to clothes, they will probably also need to be decontaminated between wearers and we believe that the climate benefit here will be very limited, if any. On the other hand, renting ski clothing, for example, in connection with renting skis at a ski resort seems reasonable from a climate perspective as well. Especially if the clothes you rent are not clothes you can use for other activities as well. Equipment rental is probably more relevant to consider. There is no or less cleansing required between wearers, and there is a greater risk that certain equipment will be left unused for long time periods. Clothes tend to be used more often. Therefore, we might be looking into equipment rental in the future. Regarding secondhand, we will soon start a pilot project and test secondhand trade. With all that said, there is no better way to use a product than for the first person who buys it to use it for its entire potential lifetime. Secondhand and rental may compensate for when this is not possible or simply doesn't happen.