Environmental and Social Practices

We try to make as little impact on the environment as possible by developing high-quality, long lasting products. In our search for performance and durability, we always opt for eco-friendly materials whenever possible and luckily, there is an increasing range of great new materials to choose from.

We will never compromise on the safety for a user of a Sweet Protection product but are always on the lookout for better and stronger materials with an eco-friendly approach. You can always feel safe when wearing any products from Sweet Protection. Here is more info on how we ensure it.

We follow up on this by doing unannounced visits ourselves. But we also get help from our experienced friends in the non-profit organizations BSCI and IEH

IEH – Ethical Trading Initiative Norway
IEH gives us advice on which countries that are safe to produce in, what to look for when doing inspections and how to create efficient long-term goals. IEH has also helped us develop our code of conduct to meet the UN, ILO and our own regulations.

BSCI – Business Social Compliance Initiative

BSCI are helping us on inspecting factories, rating them from A to F. If one receives A or B, the factory is approved and will only be inspected every third year. Should the factory receive C, D or E however, inspections will be carried out every year to make sure they improve.

To be closer to our production, which mainly takes place in Vietnam, China and Myanmar, we have an office comprising 50 colleagues in Shanghai. They perform our inspections, secure the product quality and create important long-term relations with the factories.

We wish there was a better solution to this, but packaging is never really eco-friendly (yet!). We have reduced the amount of plastic in our packaging to a minimum and try to use recycled plastic whenever possible. The goal is to have a new eco-friendly packaging in 2020. Meanwhile we urge you to recycle. On our side, we try to make up for creating all this waste, by paying qualified national recycling firms to take care of it in a sustainable way through The Green Dot System.

We produce a lot of our stuff from wool, which is super eco-friendly. When other materials are needed however, we do our best to secure that our products are 100 % free from bad chemicals. Partnering with solid suppliers like W.L. Gore and Associates and PrimaLoft gives us solid documentation and we share the same ambition for more recycled and sustainable fabrics. 

We comply with the European Union´s

regulations, that prohibit harmful chemicals. All of our materials are registered and evaluated to be on the safe side.

All of our suppliers are committed to supply chemical-free products. Every 24th month we carry out random testing of every product category to control them.

All products containing PVC is tested for the dangerous phthalate chemical, to guarantee that it doesn’t contain any before it is used in production. This way we secure that our PVC products, such as bags and rain wear, are one hundred percent safe to wear.

We have phased out the use of antibacterial treatments of any kind. Why? Because the chemicals used to do so never decompose when they end up in sea, causing mass deaths of micro-organisms. Instead, we focus on new technology and design that makes the garments more breathable and dry.

Our main suppliers of fabrics are Bluesign certified. Which means, they only use safe input chemicals, monitor their air and water emissions and ensure worker safety so that the dyed fabric is safe for the end user, workers and the environment.

A lot of training gear is made from polyester, which basically is plastic. We are currently working on replacing ours with recycled alternatives. There is far too much plastic in the world already, so we´re really excited about this and will keep you posted!

To get that soft and silky feel to our wool products, we use wool from the finest merino sheeps in New Zealand and Australia. It's super important for us to know that the sheeps have been taken good care of, and that they haven’t been mistreated by the horrifying mulesing technique. To ensure this, we get our wool from the strictest controlled channels that have been created internationally. The certificates that follow, are the best assurances we currently have to make sure that our wool products are manufactured under good welfare conditions for the animals.

Secure that all partial shipments of wool, come from non-mulesing wool.

Guarantees that all shipments of wool come from the certified non-mulesing wool suppliers in the actual production country, to the supplier in China.

Confirms that all garments produced by Sweet Protection production partners, are based on non-mulesing wool.

Sweet Protection has taken an active stand against mulesing and expect that this practice in raw material production soon will be history.

We don't use any fur in our products.