November 2023

With the end of 2023 just around the corner, now is a good time to look back over our shoulder and gain a broader view of the ground we have covered. Back in 2020, we made a commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and reach net zero by 2030, and, to be honest, the road has been a bumpy one.

As part of our climate commitment, we routinely offset all of our emissions by investing in high-quality carbon credits. But we consider this to be a temporary solution while we make progress towards our ultimate goal.

In our most recent Sustainability Report 2022, we shared that, despite the noticeable progress we’d made towards reducing our operations-based emissions and initiating positive steps together with our suppliers, our carbon footprint actually grew larger because we increased the production of outdoor gear.

We ended the year making plans to accelerate our actions, focusing our resources and reduction initiatives on the areas where we know we can make the greatest impact.

So how did it go? Keep reading for a quick progress update.

Our progress in 2023:

• We pushed sustainability up even higher on our priority list

We consolidated our sustainability and business development efforts into a single department in June of this year. This move guarantees that sustainability is seamlessly woven into our growth and strategic decision-making processes, emphasizing its pivotal role in our future success.

It also enables a more holistic approach to growth, where sustainability is not seen as a separate department or initiative but as an essential component in every aspect of our business, from product development and operations to customer engagement and supply chain management.

• We opened a sourcing office in Asia to accelerate environmental and social progress at our factories

As part of our updated sourcing strategy, in 2023 we opened a local sourcing office in Asia so we could be closer to our assembly factories and material producers. This is a critical step for our net zero journey, considering that most of our emissions come from the manufacture of materials that go into our products. Now that we have a team on the ground, we can work even more closely with our suppliers and increase our influence in the factories we work with—supporting a faster transition to the use of renewable energy and lower-impact materials. Having a local sourcing office will also allow us to place higher demands on fair working conditions and salary levels.

• We relocated our distribution center to make our logistics flow more efficient

In the spring of 2023, we moved to a larger logistics center in Eskilstuna, Sweden. This improved location is helping us to manage our logistics flow more efficiently, and lower our emissions in the process. Direct greenhouse gas emissions from our everyday operations are not where the bulk of our emissions lie, so our new distribution center location may not have a significant impact on our carbon footprint. But considering the big picture of our carbon footprint, it is still an important step.

• We made less stuff

This may not be “progress” from the perspective of our current business model, but the fact that we decreased our production of outdoor gear in 2023 by approximately 35% will certainly have a visible impact on our emissions output. It is important to have this fact as context when reading about our carbon footprint results in the coming 2023 Sustainability Report.

So what are the results?

The full impact of the changes we made this year remains to be seen. We will know more once we complete our emissions calculations at the end of the year. And it’s good to keep in mind that some actions might not yield results until further down the road.

If you want to learn more about the progress we have (or haven’t) made on the road to net zero, watch for our next 2023 Sustainability Report. There, we will share the year’s results, explain how we measure our emissions, and talk about our action plan for 2024.