NEWS
Patagonia’s New Climate Goal PATAGONIA recently announced its plan to eliminate or mitigate all its carbon emissions by 2025. To achieve this goal, it will embark on a four-part process that is aimed to stabilize the company’s carbon footprint at zero, while the business continues to grow. The first part involves acquiring robust data using a third-party validated system to measure the company’s impacts from raw resource extraction to material creation to delivery of products to customers. With reliable data in hand, the second part involves reducing their impact. With the majority of emissions coming from producing the product’s materials, Patagonia plans increased use of recycled materials, extending product lifespans and a program that aims to calculate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions along Patagonia’s supply chain. The third part involves a conversion to renewable energy. Already by the outset of 2020, Patagonia aims to have its global owned and operated locations 100 percent renewably powered. Within its supply chain, Patagonia is also supporting its suppliers to invest in renewable energy projects at their facilities. The fourth and final part aims to capture the remaining carbon emissions via Regenerative Organic Agriculture and reforestation projects. 14 – suston
INTERNATIONAL SKI WAX BAN
Citing concerns for negative environmental and health impacts, the International Ski Federation (FIS) has announced that it will ban all fluorinated ski waxes from all its sponsored ski events effective winter 2020/2021.
REI’S 52 RESOLUTIONS FOR THOSE LOOKING TO make a difference in 2020, REI’s Opt to Act Plan has some suggestions. 52 of them, in fact, one for each week of the year. The first week of February, for example, participants are challenged to “Call your utilities company to ask about green energy options.” Some other highlights include: Week 3: Opt out of junk mail. Week 21: Celebrate Earth Day by contacting your local representative to advocate for environmental action. Week 23: Don’t wash your jeans all month. Week 33: Repair an item instead of purchasing a new one. Week 48: Attempt to create zero food waste this week.
AUSTRALIA’S CHERNOBYL MOMENT?
Australia’s climate policy – or lack of one – has often received criticism internationally. Will the ongoing wildfires change that? In Australian media, some are calling them a “Chernobyl moment” for the country and in a national survey in November, 57% stated they believe climate change is linked to bushfires.
PHOTO: ICEBUG
PHOTO: iSTOCK
Prof. Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact.
PHOTO: REI
“Welcome to 2020. The Year of Truth. The year when the rapid rise in curves must start bending downwards to give us a chance of having a stable planet to live on.”
Crowd-Funded Sustainable Shoe IN A BID to “shake up the shoe industry,” the Swedish shoe producer Icebug initiated a Kickstarter campaign last December with the goal of financing what Icebug claims will be the most sustainable running shoe on the market. The shoe, Outrun, is 200% carbon offset, is manufactured in a factory equipped with solar modules, has an outsole that is PFC free and made of 15 percent recycled rubber, an upper in recycled polyester and 20 percent of the midsole is made of Bloomfoam, a biomaterial made from algae. By January 9th, Icebug achieved its goal of SEK 200.000 (USD 21,000).
