On the long list of outdoor gear companies lauded for sustainable business practices, you’d be hard pressed to find Jack Wolfskin anywhere near the top. But that doesn’t mean the company shouldn’t be there.
“When we were checking into the communication about what other brands were doing, we laughed because we had been [implementing similar sustainable practices] for almost a decade prior,” says Jack Wolfskin Director of Apparel Daniele Grasso. “And no one knew about it.”
The company came to this realization in 2017, when a consortium of the German outdoor industry decided to promote their companies and businesses overseas. By that point, Jack Wolfskin was well into a 12-year campaign to be a poly-fluorinated chemicals (PFC)-free company by 2020. They achieved that goal last year, almost a year ahead of schedule.
In tandem with the 2017 promotional campaign, Grasso and his team researched more than 200 international outdoor, lifestyle, and fashion brands that made some claim of “sustainability” in their product line. Over and over again, Grasso found that while many had a recycled or renewable shell or lining, no company had figured out how to use sustainable materials in the self-described “engine” of a waterproof jacket: the membrane layer that keeps water out and transports sweat from inside the jacket to outside of it. This is where Grasso and his team began.
THE ITEMS
The team spent more than a year developing its own membrane layer and ultimately created a textile made from recycled PET bottles. The result was the final component of the Texapore-Ecosphereline, which included garments made from 100% recycled polyester, mostly from production scraps blended together.
In the summer of 2018, the company released the first Texapore-Ecosphere collection, consisting of 11 styles with the fully recycled materials. The past and current product line includes ski coats, snow pants, hats, gloves, longer outerwear, and more. Currently, there are 66 styles available on the company’s website.
PRICE
The material has been used across a range of products with a price structure to match. Hats start at US$32, gloves at US$86, outerwear starts around US$100 and tops out at US$340 for more technical jackets.
DESCRIPTION
Jack Wolfskin’s lineage in sustainability extends back to the origins of the company in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1981.
The brand has never used real fur and had what was likely one of the industry’s first in-brand repair programs for worn clothes. The company established an early environmental and labor “code of conduct” in 2007, which follows the charter of human rights as outlined by the United Nations and the conventions of the International Labor Organization. Since Jack Wolfskin doesn’t own any of the factories that produce its goods, the company works with independent inspectors to ensure it’s abiding by fair and uniform labor standards. The company has implemented a long list of other impact standards in the last decade as well.
According to Grasso, Jack Wolfskin also maintains a strict transparency standard within its supply chain that enables the brand to audit the eco-positive effectiveness of their production. This extends through vendor control and across tiers of suppliers.
WHAT’S THE GOOD?
Within the first four seasons, the company produced 318,000 Texapore-Ecosphere garments. This equals 15 million PET bottles recycled across all of the produced membranes for a total of just under 3 million feet of waterproof materials produced.
“What we’re realizing now is that, via our supplier, a lot of brands are asking for this membrane,” Grasso says.
The success of this line will go into a new social responsibility report, which the company will publish in the first quarter of 2020. (Jack Wolfskin published its first report in 2011 and has released one most years since.)
WHAT’S NEXT
The company will continue to fine-tune its recycled lines, but is also focusing attention on the dyeing process, which typically uses a high amount of resources.
“The two big things with this will be the water we’re saving and the reduction and the improved chemistry of what we’re sending into the water supply,” Grasso says.
While Grasso can’t reveal many details of Jack Wolfskin’s new technology called “Future Dye,” he does say this is the first step in a waterless dyeing process, which would immensely reduce water use within the textile industry. He says the company is currently working with different dyeing facilities to see which method might work best at scale.
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January 03, 2020 at 03:25AM
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Good Company: How Jack Wolfskin Quietly Became a Top Sustainable Producer in the Outdoor Industry - Barron's
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