Packaging that grows on trees
Finding a sustainable way to package clothes is not as simple as plastic = bad and paper = good. Here’s how lockdown, a Swedish forest and Tetris helped us find ways to remove plastic from most of our packaging.
Packaging is a problem.
Around 5,000 parcels were shipped every second in 2021[1], making for 159 billion items of plastic, paper and other packaging materials in need of disposal. This causes huge environmental problems, especially when it comes to plastic pollution. By 2050, it's projected that the amount of plastic in the ocean will weigh more than the amount of fish in the ocean.[2]
It’s an issue that matters to us. And we know it matters to our customers.
But switching from plastic to more sustainable packaging turns out to be way more complicated than you might expect.
Let us explain…
Juggling snow
The story starts during the Covid-19 pandemic when much of the world went into lockdown…
We were already using recycled plastic for our packaging, but our co-founder Linus, inspired by an article he read, challenged us to do better. We used this time to delve more deeply into which packaging worked best for both our products and the environment.
We tried to look at it purely scientifically - without thinking of sales or costs.
We looked at the type and availability of materials, life-cycle assessments (LCAs), and how and where things are produced. We read many research papers and explored the effects of pollution and CO2-eq (equivalent) emissions. We assessed recycling availability, new technologies and consumer habits and learned from other brands’ actions.
There were so many considerations! It sometimes felt like juggling snow.
The pitfalls of paper
The obvious move was to switch to paper. But we found most commercially viable sources of paper packaging either cause deforestation or come from outside the US or EU, meaning high transport emissions and forestry operations with often poor practices – causing habitat loss, pollution, soil degradation and workers’ rights issues.
Moreover, plastic tends to be thinner, stronger and does a better job at protecting new gear from dirt, moisture and damage on the journey.
When pressing paper into cardboard, we face similar issues. Cardboard boxes also generate higher emissions as they take up much more space in shipping – as demonstrated by our test of packaging 100 common customer orders in plastic bags vs. cardboard boxes.
All in all, paper production tends to have a larger ecological footprint than plastic.
But plastic takes fossil fuels to make, and a lot of plastic produced gets into our natural spaces - killing birds, fish and other organisms that consume it. It might be ok if it all gets recycled, but that’s generally thought to be less than 10% of the world’s plastic.
We also explored biodegradable, water-soluble plastic, but this too, had downsides as it takes a lot of energy to create and is usually not recyclable.
After all our research… packaging was still a problem.
Our 'eureka' moment
Then, we came across a company in Sweden that produced high-quality paper mass packaging.
Billerud bags use paper, which is used for cement packaging. It's very durable, very thin, and offers great protection for shipping our garments.
For us, Billerud was the missing piece of the puzzle.
Billerud use Nordic forest management practices, have an FSC certification, and its Swedish base reduces transport emissions. A comprehensive life cycle analysis showed using a Billerud paper mailing bag resulted in 62-68% less greenhouse gases than our (recycled) plastic option.
We decided to use Billerud’s neutral mailing bags to replace our recycled LDPE bags for e-commerce, but that was only part of the process. We still had a dilemma around the in-bag packaging that protects the products.
Zero plastic to customers
New clothes need preserving in the journey from factories in Europe and Asia to our warehouse. Boxes get ripped and broken, and the recycled LDPE bags keep gear clean and safe, preventing damage and wasted garments. But we also wanted to respond to our strong customer requests to remove plastic packaging, often because local recycling facilities are poor or unavailable.
It’s not perfect, but we’ve made some headway on this dilemma.
For the first leg of the journey, we created a recycling loop and switched from a branded ziplocked LDPE bag to a thinner, unbranded bag. We estimate that this cuts plastic use by 32%. Meanwhile, the unbranded bags are removed by our warehouse, and we can ensure that 100% is sent for recycling or reuse.
For the second leg, from warehouse to customer, we switch the gear to a paper sleeve, meaning zero plastic to our customers and freeing them of the responsibility of recycling plastic correctly.
Playing Tetris
But the challenge wasn’t over. The switch away from plastic for customers presented a difficult test for our warehouse partners.
Paper isn’t the norm. It’s not as simple to handle as plastic. It takes longer, gets stuck on conveyors, and packages don’t always fall into the sorting lines (we fixed this by wrapping the line in silicone to improve grip).
But we came up with a system…
Emil, the second of our big brother founders, along with our CEO, Elin, spent a LONG time testing many different ways to fold snow gear one Christmas.
They developed the ‘Tetris project’ of five folding methods for larger items, like jackets and snow pants. It keeps clothes neat and fitting efficiently against each other in the paper mailing bag to reduce the risk of shipping air.
As the system has bedded in, we’ve found that, while it takes longer and some staff initially thought we were crazy… they’ve got used to it, and it makes packing work more varied.
We kept a careful watch on feedback and found customers positive and receptive to the change, with rarely any negative comments on this matter.
Most importantly, these combined projects mean over 90% of our packaging is plastic-free.
Constant learning and improvement
This isn’t the end of our packaging journey.
Going forward, our team is exploring options more tailored to local markets, such as similar paper bags to Billerud but based in North America.
And we’ll evolve our Tetris project to more items of clothing. We’re exploring ways to make the cardboard we use more sustainable - thinner boxes with more recycled and recyclable materials. We’ll continue to listen to customers’ feedback to ensure we’re doing as little harm as possible while delivering the best snow sports gear we can.
The changes to our packaging helped us save 10 tons of plastic in the Financial Year 2023 – equivalent to the weight of over 136 average-sized snowboarders.
