In this third year of our sustainability programme, we’re excited to share the progress we’re making and the challenges we continue to tackle. Here’s a snapshot of our journey so far:
61% approve of our initiatives
Thank you to everyone who participated in our consumer survey. Sustainability and ethical practice are important to 67% of you, with 61% approving of our initiatives. Your support motivates us to keep pushing ahead!
Fossflakes pillow: Environmental top performer
We’ve completed the life cycle assessment (LCA) of our top-selling pillow and had it validated by independent experts. Much to our surprise, the Fossflakes pillow outperformed the down-feather equivalent in 16 of 18 environmental categories. It boasts a 33% lower carbon footprint, saves 131 litres of water, and uses 90% less land.
Encouraged by these findings, we’re setting new targets to reduce the environmental footprint even further.
A step closer to lower impact filling
Material choice is the biggest driver of our products’ environmental impact, and switching to recycled polyester is a key milestone on our roadmap. Unfortunately, finding high-quality, reliable suppliers takes time, and we need several of them. In parallel, we’re evaluating biodegradable polyethylene. The possibilities are promising, and we hope to have good news in the new year.
Challenges with take-back system
The circular economy is rising up the business agenda, and we’d love to recover our products at the end of their life and recycle or reuse the materials. Despite our ambition, we’ve made little progress on a take-back system due to its complexity and cost. We remain committed to exploring options as the industry evolves but expect slow progress on this front.
Factory waste: A small puzzle
Our factory produces minimal waste, and ironically that’s a challenge: the volume of material is too low to be of interest to other manufacturers. That means we need to find an innovative way to use it ourselves, but the perfect solution remains elusive for now. The task remains on our product development roadmap.
Minimal air freight
Careful planning has meant we've almost eliminated air freight in recent years. The year 2024 is no exception and so far we’ve only air freighted a small volume of product to new customers who need to stock up fast.
Ethical cotton: A tough call
As part of our goal to ensure we buy cotton produced under decent working conditions, we now only deal with BSCI audited suppliers. Unfortunately, one of our suppliers has ceased its annual audit and we have therefore decided to part ways with them. While tough, this is the kind of step we must take to ensure a responsible supply chain.
Speaking invitation from UN Global Compact
Autumn is conference season and we were honoured to speak at the Global Compact Network Denmark event on sustainability reporting, attended by 130 small and medium-sized businesses. During the session, we urged companies to lead the way on ESG, rather than placing the burden on consumers, and emphasised the value of external expertise in making progress. We also highlighted the power of LCAs to replace faulty assumptions with solid data, creating a foundation for a sustainability programme.
Full report in the spring
Look out for our full 2024 sustainability report, coming in early 2025, where we’ll share more insights, updates, and our plans for the year ahead.