12 Running Brands With Environmental Programs You Didn't Know About
Make purchases you feel good about.
When it comes to protecting the environment, our purchases—what and from whom—matter. Thankfully, the brands we love are always working hard to up their game when it comes to sustainability. This is a short list of just a few brands making strides and setting examples for the entire industry:
GU Energy Labs
GU Energy Labs makes sports nutrition energy gels in plastic packets. GU believes that if they are promoting access to sport and activity, it’s their responsibility then, to help protect the environment in which they encourage the world to play. So, it makes sense that part of the energy company’s brand-wide mission is to give back to the community and lend a hand to environmental sustainability. To do this, GU supports around 100 grassroots organizations, including the Conservation Alliance.
That's not all. In addition to their give-back program, GU encourages consumers to recycle with Terracycle, a unique recycling program for hard-to-recycle items (like, yes, you guessed it: a GU packet!) While it’s not as easy as dropping empty packets into a recycling bin (you do have to ship them), the GU and Terracycle partnership makes it as easy as possible. Simply accumulate acceptable items till you have at least two pounds of recyclables and then print a free label on their site. For more details, click here and, as GU says, “join the brigade.”
Brooks Running
With their featured athlete Desi Linden coming off a Boston Marathon win, Brooks Running has had quite the week. In the past several years, the Corporate Responsibility team at Brooks has created The Brooks Running Responsibly Program, a strategic and holistic Corporate Responsibility platform, which measures sustainability through five pillars; community, fair labor, product design and materials, manufacturing, and their footprint.
The brand has an honest section of their website in which they transparently display their product’s environmental impacts, environmentally preferred materials, banned substance list, environmental manufacturing program, global footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Nike
Being one of the largest apparel brands in the world, a lot of eyes are watching your every move. But that doesn’t scare Nike.
Just take this quote from Mark Parker, President and CEO of Nike Inc., for example, “if all we do is create a single line of green products, we will have failed. Sustainability must be a design ethos across all our products."
To do this, they’re focusing on four key areas:
Waste
The brand’s focus on eliminating waste through more efficient product design and manufacturing technologies was exemplified in 2015. In 2015 alone, 54 million pounds of factory scrap was transformed into premium materials used in Nike performance footwear and apparel.
Energy
Since Nike launched their Energy and Carbon program in 2008, Nike footwear contract manufacturers have cut energy use per unit in half, meaning today it takes about half the energy and emissions to make a pair of shoes compared to eight years ago.
Water
Nike reduced water use by 18% per unit in apparel materials and 43% per unit in footwear manufacturing, far surpassing their goals for 2015.
Chemistry
In 2015, 95% of materials passed the Restricted Substances List testing.
Plus, they also have one heck of a shoe recycling program. Take up to 10 pairs of worn out kicks into any Nike store (you can also mail them, but Nike won’t cover those shipping costs). Nike then takes those shoes and creates a proprietary track and athletic court material called “Nike Grind.” They even use the stuff to make playgrounds.
Adidas
On top of transparent messaging regarding their sustainability efforts and annual sustainability reports, adidas joined the Parley for the Oceans project in April 2015 and has since launched several products made from ocean plastic.
Since the launch of their Parley collection, adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted told CNBC they have sold 1,000,000 pairs of the shoes. Each shoe uses 11 plastic water bottles. You can do the math on that.
Nathan
The company that makes top-notch hydration products for road and trail running also works to clean beaches around the country, too. (For example, this year they adopted a section of Bolsa Chica State Beach in Orange County, CA, and are working hard to keep it trash free). Plus, by simply using the reusable water bottles and handhelds they offer, you’re cutting down on the amount of plastic waste that gets tossed into the ocean every single day.
Icebreaker
Sustainability and strict environmental awareness are at the core of this apparel company’s mission. Since 2010, Icebreaker has released a “Transparency Report” which details their procedures for production, sourcing, shipping, and more. This kind of transparency holds Icebreaker to a strict design and production standard when it comes to environmental practices. As a consumer, you can always track the journey of your garment from the farm where the sheep were raised to the factory where it was constructed. How? Use the “Bahh Code” on the label.
Smartwool
Smartwool believes their wool products are best when they’re made through fair, sustainable and mutually rewarding practices. It also helps that wool is natural and renewable.
Their partner, New Zealand Merino Company, has developed ZQ, the world’s first Merino wool accreditation program. This program ensures environmental, social and economic sustainability and safeguards animal welfare.
Their Merino sheep enjoy free range, in some of the most spectacular natural settings found today. They claim that the environment their sheep enjoy contributes directly to the high quality of the fiber they use. They work with our growers to ensure they’re always using best practices, and in turn, they always endeavor to pay them a fair price.
Vuori
While writing an introductory article about Vuori, our newest men’s brand available at our flagship Old Town store, we found a lot out about their sustainability practices. They use recycled plastic bottles to create recycled polyster fabric in some of their shorts, their shirts use a fiber known as Sea Cell, which is a sustainably sourced fiber that uses a blend of algae and wood pulp, and another fabric they’ve created is the upcycled coconut fabric. Upcycling is a process of turning coconut husks into something useful, like our clothing.
New Balance
According to their website, New Balance believes in treading lightly on limited resources, striving for zero waste in what they do and assessing the life cycle impacts of their products and activities.
You can read through their extensive sustainability efforts here but we’ll give you a quick rundown of the key elements of their continuous environmental improvement process:
- Continued commitment to demonstrating responsible leadership reaffirmed by the joining of the Zero Discharge or Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) group.
- Use of life cycle (LCA) based analysis to drive decision-making around commodity impacts and help inform materials selection
- A focus on material choices in design via use of an internally developed, environmentally preferred materials (EPM) tool
- Identification and control of hazardous substances to prevent their use in products and the manufacturing processes
- Waste reduction in manufacturing
- Improved packaging using EPMs
New Balance is also apart of The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) is a broad coalition of brands encompassing over 40% of the global apparel & footwear supply chain.
Mizuno
While Mizuno’s basic environmental policy is something to boast, we’d like to shine a light on the Crew21 Mizuno Global Environmental Conservation Project.
Since the Crew21 project was launched in 1991, Mizuno has been undertaking activities to cut the environmental impact of manufacturing and conserve the global environment. Crew21 stands for Conservation of Resources and Environmental Wave21. It represents the brand's resolution to dedicate ourselves to the conservation of natural resources and the environment as a member of the “crew” of Spacecraft Earth. You can take a look at the timeline and the things the Crew21 project has accomplished here.
Hoka One One
Inspired after joining the UNGC (United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary corporate citizenship initiative), Deckers wanted to challenge ourselves to adopt more formal longterm goals. We are excited to announce Deckers Brands Sustainable Development Goals. Below are our new targets which we are calling our “7 by 2027”.
These seven targets are materials, waste, chemicals, water, human rights, climate & clean energy, and gender equality, reduced inequalities, and quality education. You can read about their goals for each target on page 7 of their corporate responsibility update fiscal year 2017 report.
The North Face
The North Face was built on a love for the outdoors and the desire to enable all types of exploration, from your backyard to the Himalayas. Over the last 50 years we've lived by our “true north,” the belief that exploration has the power to change us, to challenge us and to help us see the world from new perspectives.
The running and outdoors brand has a bunch of programs in tact to help be conscious of the environment around them:
Recyling materials. The North Face is committed to increasing their usage of recycled fabric, especially recycled polyester, we provide a market solution for a growing problem - used water and soda bottles. You can find recycled polyester in some of our core products like the Glacier ¼ Zips and our iconic Denali Jacket.
Chemical responsibility. The brand adheres to a Banned Substance List and while some chemicals are needed to deliver the high quality product the brand is known for, over the last few years they've been working to replace these Durable Water Repellency (DWR) chemicals with environmentally preferable options.
Suppy chain savings. The North Face partners with the industry-leading experts at BLUESIGN TECHNOLOGIES to help their mills reduce their impact by using water and energy more efficiently and by addressing harmful chemicals used on fabrics.
On top of this, The North Face vows to protect the lands we live, play, and operate but instating climate change programs, installing renewable technologies in their facilities, saving our lands such as The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and being a co-founder of The Conservation Alliance alongside Patagonia.
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