You? Yes, Yew!

JT: I took out the recycling. Not very sexy, but it needs to be done!

 

JT: The clothing industry has a huge impact on the environment.  It consumes large quantities of natural resources both for creating the textiles and processing them but also it uses harmful chemicals and pesticides.  It is vital that the industry as a whole starts to use more sustainable fabrics on a much larger scale.  

 

JT: We started Yew because we wanted more out of the clothing we wore. The aim was to make well-designed high-performance ethically-sourced clothes from the best environmentally sustainable materials. As a consumer by choosing to buy recycled or organic clothing you help reduce the energy it takes to produce fabrics, limit the use of harmful chemicals, and provide a safer working environment for textile farmers.

 

JT: All our active wear is made from 100% recycled polyester from consumer waste. This means that it is made from waste plastics such as drinks bottles or food containers.

 

JT: Exactly! All our recycled polyester fabrics come from Taiwan. As a fairly small island with limited landfill sites, Taiwan takes recycling very seriously.  Recycled fabrics are great. They require less energy to produce and they take a used product and make it into something brand new. We spent over a year researching the best possible fabrics for our active wear range. Recycled polyester outperformed all other sustainable options for our active wear range. We also use organic cotton for our range of casual T-shirts. 

 

JT: We made sure we had some sporty girls on the design team for that! Our styles are classic and are designed to be flattering, with a shaped waist and contrasting side panels. We wanted to produce something practical and durable, but stylish, and offer a real alternative to other active wear brands out there. Of course it is important that our tops are made from sustainable fabrics, but it is also essential that they look good and perform well to compete in such a competitive marketplace. 

 

JT: Yes! Yes! Yes! We’ve worked really hard to ensure our pricing is fair and reasonable so that you are not paying a premium for a sustainable product. For us, this was vital because the perception out there is that you need to spend more to get something ethically sourced and made from sustainable materials. At Yew, we wanted to challenge that and provide ethical clothes at an affordable price.

 

JT: There are lots of things you can do to reduce your impact on the environment. For example, you could think about how you get to the mountains during the season. For many European destinations, taking the train is quite practical. 

 

You can also support resorts that try to reduce their environmental impact by enhancing their energy efficiency and using alternative power sources. Resorts that produce a lot of artificial snow are likely to be the worse offenders. You can find out more from the Ski Club of Great Britain which has set up a Green Resort Guide to provide information about the environmental credentials of the world’s ski resorts.  See http://skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/resorts/greenresorts. 

 

You can also do small things like taking rubbish with you off a mountain and making sure it gets recycled. 

 

 

OK, so let’s take a moment…

 

In recent years there as been a vast increase in media coverage of how sportswear companies manufacture their products. With weekly revelations of sweat shop working conditions and child labour it’s easy to become immune to the headlines and images. But western enterprises have and continue to use child labour. They include some of the biggest sportswear providers on the market. They choose to produce their products in counties where worker safety and the environment are not regulated. They choose to manufacture their products in the factories of nations not always in a position to operate sustainably. They choose to manufacture their products in factories that pollute the air, the local water supplies and the health of the local community. They make these choices purely with a concern for profit. 

 

So seeing as they are so concerned with money, let yours speak for you. 

 

It’s sometimes hard to know who is ethical and who isn’t. So we have short-listed a few brands to get you started. And seeing as you are probably going to buy base layers this year anyway, why not check out Yew Clothing. Their sustainable base layers cost exactly the same as the brands you probably normally use. Visit www.yewclothing.com for more information. 

 

 

They make some of the coolest and highest spec ski and snowboard clothes on the market. They were the forerunners for ethical products and one of the first to use only organically grown cotton in their clothing line. They also have a synthetic fiber-to-fiber recycling scheme, where it takes back worn-out polyester and nylon clothing and reincarnates it as new products. Their product range is extensive. You could probably kit yourself out solely using these guys. 

And if you want to know more about their environmentalism click here to find out more. 

 

The outdoor clothing company from New Zealand specialises in using merino wool and has a scheme to make its clothing traceable. It allows you to track your garment’s journey from the countryside in New Zealand right through to the factory it is created in. Each garment is printed with a Baacode (get it? Merino wool, sheep, baa!) which you enter on their website www.icebreaker.com/baacode. This then allows you to trace your garment. You will see the stations the sheep were farmed on, meet the farmers who reared them and their families too! You can follow the production process too and see where the garment was knitted, dyed and manufactured. Cool. 

 

Although branded as a surf label, Finisterre create great classic outdoor gear that can cross over into many different activities. They work with recycled polyester and have also created many products from Merino wool. Their ethos is not just to create quality outdoor gear for you, but to create a product that lasts a life time. After all, if you don’t need to replace it, you are also helping the environment. They have some really gorgeous outer layer jackets. I love their yellow jacket. Check them out. 

 

For post-snowboarding yoga, stretching or relaxing in the chalet Gossypium make the most gorgeous products.  They work in partnership with the cotton farmers in Indian and personally visit all the factories they work with. 

 

They also place emphasis on making better quality garments ensuring longevity. To quote their website “over its lifespan [their product] will have consumed less valuable resources than an inferior product that will have been replaced many times” Their moto is if they make the best quality products it’s ultimately the best thing they can do for the environment. Who doesn’t love stuff that lasts a lifetime?