Under the lens. Courtesy of Medical Sheepskins.

No two wools are alike.
Obviously, we’re big fans of wool. As a natural fiber, it’s able to keep you dry and comfortable across multiple environments. However, despite its many benefits, wool continues to get a bad rap. The most common complaints: it itches, it’s too much work, it shrinks. Sure, this was true of old military style wools, but this versatile fiber has come a long way since the days of scratchy coats and stiff blankets. In fact, over the past few years, we’ve developed a collection of wools which are durable enough to withstand the modern washing machine, yet soft enough to be worn next to the skin.

Here’s a quick look at our collection of knit and woven wools, why they work and how you can make them last a lifetime.

Wool, Up Close
If you look closely (see above), wool looks a lot like the surface of a reptile. Jamie, our textile guru, likens it to a rose bush with thorns. These thorns, more scientifically known as scales, are the main culprits in giving traditional wool its abrasive texture. When washed, these scales interlock and become tighter and tighter causing, what we call, shrinkage.

Our wool fibers go through an anti-shrink process which pacifies these unruly scales and allows them to soften and adhere to the fiber, therefore creating a washable fabric which is softer, smoother, and much more pleasant to wear next to the skin.

A Merino Ram offers up some of the softest wool around. Not to mention, they're pretty amazing looking creatures.

Wool Knits

Where you’ll find it: Our M1, M2 and M3 merino collections.
How to make it last: The great thing about machine-washable wool is just that—you can throw it in the washing machine and not have to worry if you’ll end up with a shirt that fits a four-year-old. We recommend delicate or gentle cycle.

Some DON’Ts: No bleach and never, absolutely never use a commercial dryer like those found at a laundromat. As Jamie says: “They’re like pottery kilns. They destroy things.” Best to lay flat to dry (and not on a wood-fired stove either). You can also line-dry.

Wool Jackets

Where you’ll find it: men’s and women’s Highline Jacket, Elimeno-Pea Coat
How to make it last: Since dry cleaning is never a sustainable process, we created a wool that we could wash by hand. Of course, if you’re averse to hand washing or just don’t have the time, look into wet cleaning (also known as green cleansing) which utilizes biodegradable soaps and conditioners.

Otherwise, the easiest thing to do: fill up a bathtub with water and a small amount of soap (dishwashing soap works well). Submerge the jacket and let it soak. After a few hours, give it a shake. That way, you’ll free the dirt that’s been loosened by the soap and water.

Rinse. You can do this in one of two ways: fill up a bathtub with water OR wear it in the shower. We’ve never tried the latter option, but we’re fairly certain it does the job.

And lastly: lay flat to dry. Never hang to dry. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting those unsightly hanger marks.

That’s about it. But if you have any more questions about our wools, feel free to contact us at customercare@nau.com.

To learn more about the sustainability of our wool fabrics, check out our Working With Wool section.

There are many things we love about our friends at Grain Surfboards. Not only do they build beautiful, natural wood surfboards akin to a work of art, they do it sustainably.  Rooted in traditional boat-building, Grain uses locally harvested cedar to carve out stunning modern boards built to last. And, as we learned, they’re not afraid to share their secrets.

This week, in the Thought Kitchen, our friends at Grain give us a little insight behind the business of building surfboards, how they came to be here, and why you should come to Portland (or their hometown in Maine) to build one of these handcrafted wonders yourself.

Grain Surfboards is a small hive of activity located on the coast of Maine. With our small, tight crew of eight, we handcraft, classic surfboards, out-of-the-ordinary wood belly-boards, hand-planes, and skate boards out of local timber. And in the process of creating beautiful, custom boards, we end up building an off-kilter community of independent thinkers around us.

To find yourself in the business of making stuff for people feels a bit odd, especially to those of us disinclined to accumulate things. But as Brando once said, “one must do something” and at Grain Surfboards, we’ve found that there are deep rewards and contributions to be made even in the world of making what – on the surface – appears to be mere consumer goods.

That may be because of the way we originally came to build surfboards; out of a desire to make our boards in a way that felt more real, more lasting, and of better quality than what we felt was being offered by the so-called “surf industry.” Those origins, combined with our experiences with traditional wood boats, brought us together some years ago. We all had the same idea: to craft surfboards in the same way that boats are built – as a hull around a frame, an essentially hollow vessel, built to last.

Along the way, we discovered that we could adhere to a pretty strict ethos of sustainability, even as we taught others that there were options to the short-lived, industrial surf-craft that has become the norm.  Our teaching roles expanded as we realized the many rewards inherent in “rolling our own” surfboards. We figured out how to assemble wood parts, hardware, and knowledge into the most complete surfboard kit available and began to share the experience of building your own board with people from all over the world. Eventually, we invited people to build boards in our shop. And now thanks to the help of some like-minded companies like Nau, we are able take our classes on the road in cities like Portland, Oregon.

In the process of helping people build their own surfboards or custom build their dream board, we collected a community of people around us. This is one of the great rewards of doing what we do. People often find that what starts as a simple customer-vendor relationship ends in friendship and community. We believe this happens simply because, for us, the emphasis is on the experience and the inherent meaning of what we do rather than on the thing itself.

Ultimately, we found that we can be more than a mere purveyor of stuff. By offering products built with passion that will never see a landfill, we help give surfers a chance to join the collective voice of our customers and friends—a voice that celebrates great experiences, good friends, sustainability, quality and longevity.

In addition to building surfcraft and surfboard kits in Maine, Grain Surfboards holds classes in surfboard building all year long.  A traveling class will be held in Portland, Oregon in an old shipwright’s shop in March.  See details here.

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We recently stumbled upon Etsy’s provocative, short film about H.G. “Skip” Brack and his 42-year quest to single-handedly recycle and restore every tool in Maine.  His goal? To help artisans, craftsmen, welders, mechanics—and anyone else who works with their hands—create beautiful things.

Of course, this got us thinking: what was the last thing we built, not for money or merit, but for the simple satisfaction of knowing we handcrafted something beautiful?

Well, it didn’t take us long to discover that, when we’re not working, we’re busy sewing, spinning and soldering whatever we can get our hands on. Here’s a few of our more recent creations:

An entertainment center constructed from a 12 ft. salvaged Douglas Fir log that Tyson impressively milled himself.
An outdoor sofa, table and modern tool shed. Leave it up to Peter, our Design Director, to fume his own fir and weld stock metal to build an outdoor living space.
A sockadile. The name says it all. Jenny, our tech designer, fashioned it out of, what looked like, a rainbow- stripped thigh high.
Wool pants and vest. It’s not surprising that Jamie, our textile guru, spun her own washable wool and hand-knit this toddler get-up.
A galley. Yes, you read that correctly. Mark outfitted his Land Rover Defender with a sink, two-burner stove, fridge and cabinets. Next stop: the desert.
A wedding veil made from Russiun tulle.
Pork tenderloin with pickled kale and cashews.
A snow globe.
A human being.

But we’re curious: what have you put your hands on lately?

We love a good explosion every now and then, especially if it means creating a few dozen of miles of new habitat for spawning salmon and steelhead. That’s exactly what happened last week when a team of engineers blasted a giant hole in the century-old Condit Dam, sending a massive wall of water and sediment tumbling toward the Columbia River and carving out new life for the White Salmon River.

It was the third largest dam removal in the country, and our good friend and filmmaker Andy Maser was there doing what he does best— capturing a historic moment on film. He shot over eight hours of footage from multiple viewpoints and distilled it into two minutes of video and time-lapse photography.

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For Andy and anyone who loves to see nature triumph, the dam removal marked the end of an old way of thinking and the ushering in of something far better—a respect for the natural order of things (not to mention, a few dozen miles of new whitewater).

As Andy so aptly said, “We’ve reached a turning point. More dams are coming out in the US than going in. Dam removal is no longer a mark of failure, it is a mark of success. As a country, we were founded on new ideas and innovation, and we should feel proud that we have had the foresight and courage to set these rivers free.”

To see more of Andy’s work, head to Andymaser.com.

Our winter stoke Giveaway is going on now; sign up here!

Let’s face it: sometimes a love of the outdoors can force an environmentalist into uncomfortable positions. Road trips to the desert require gas, your kayak is made out of petro-chemicals, and that long dreamed of trip to Patagonia is going to require one CO2-heavy flight. Then winter rolls around, and if you love to ski (as I do), you might start to wonder if all those lifts, groomers and lodges we use are contributing to a global warming trend that means less pow, and more slush.

So what’s a responsible skier to do? Yes, everything we do to enjoy the outdoors has an impact—even ski-touring has a carbon footprint—but that’s not a reason to throw up our hands. Making an educated decision about where you ski, just like what you drive, can have a powerful influence over the impact of your actions.

That’s because there are important choices to be made when it comes down to how to run a ski resort. Resorts are large, meaning the choices they make—good and bad—have a bigger environmental impact than those we each make individually. How they make snow, how they deal with waste, whether they serve on disposable dishware: when you serve thousands of people a day, these choices add up.

That’s why we’ve been so glad to see the steps that some of our favorite ski areas have begun to take to address their energy efficiency, water usage and carbon footprint. As part of our Winter Stoke giveaway (sign up here to win one of two full-value prize packages, including lift tickets, Nau gear and more) we checked in with Mt. Hood Meadows and Stratton Mountain Resort to see what they’re doing to make their operations more sustainable.

Just up the road on Mt. Hood, our friends at Meadows are taking advantage of the abundant wind in Oregon and powering 100% of their operations with Wind Energy Credits. They’re also saving over a quarter million gallons of water each year with newly installed water-efficient appliances. And, true to Oregon’s strong locavore spirit, they’re sourcing local produce and serving it on china, not paper you throw away.

Across the country in Vermont, the folks at Stratton Mountain are also showing how investing in efficient infrastructure can save money and help the environment. They’ve installed 300 new high-efficiency snow guns, which—given how much snow they make each year—could save almost two million kilowatt-hours of electricity. Stratton was also the recipient of the Clif Bar/NSAA Sustainable Slopes Grant this spring, which they’re using to install four Big Belly Solar trash compactors, greatly reducing the the number of waste disposal trips required. They’ve also eliminated disposable dishware, a change they estimate will save roughly 75,000 soda cups, 61,000 spoons, 30,000 forks, 28,000 paper plates, 23,000 knives and 17,750 soup containers.

Of course, the ski areas have as much invested in a healthy planet as skiers do: saving energy is just good business. As skiers, we can help make it make even better business sense by choosing to enjoy those resorts who take seriously their responsibility to be good environmental stewards.

So educate yourself on the efforts your local hill is taking; it’s a step toward positive change, and toward ensuring that there will be snow for future generations.

Like what you’ve heard? Sign up here for our Winter Stoke Giveaway to win lodging for three nights, one dinner, rentals and lift tickets for two at Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont or two 10-time passes at Mt. Hood Meadows in Oregon. Each winner will also get a Nau winter jacket, pants, down top and insulation layer.

[Editors Note: Our friend and copywriter Alex left Portland last January to start a new life in the French Alps. This month, he’s returned as Guest Editor of The Thought Kitchen to share some of his experiences.]

“Everything on a boat must have a place.”

My father taught me that. He’s a sailor, but I’ve found that the rule applies whether the vessel in question is a 30’ ketch in the North Atlantic or—as in my wife’s and my case—a 10’x14’ French Mazot floating among the landlocked Alps. While it doesn’t take long to clean 140 square feet, it takes even less time to make a complete mess of it. So, though the nearest harbor is some sixty miles away on Lake Geneva, part of life in our Alpine anchorage is keeping things ship-shape.

We moved into the Mazot—a French word that I usually translate as ‘hay shed’—in June. The first thing we learned, from the hand-painted board on the deck, was that our new home had been built in 1806 and was named Le Bouet Nir. (Like boats, houses in the Alps all have names.) The second thing we learned was that it was very, very small.

Of course this wasn’t much of a surprise. We’d known what we were getting into from the start; indeed, the smallness of our new home was part of its appeal—at least to me.

Ever since 2005, when I first saw an article about a 2.6-square-meter dwelling called the Micro Compact Home, I’d been fascinated by the idea of living in a small house. Like a bonsai tree, the beauty of the MCH lay in its combination of perfect execution and miniature proportions. When compared with the McMansions of the 90’s, to me the MCH seemed to be on a scale closer to my own. I wanted one.

Later, while working at Nau, I met Dee Williams and learned about her Little House on the Trailer. (Nau’s film profile of Dee, with over half a million views, is still on The Collective). I visited MoMA’s exhibition of pre-fab housing and read Mimi Zieger’s book Tiny. I seemed to be falling in love with one of the micro-trends of the new 21st century: micro-living.

So when the chance came to move into our Mazot, my wife and I jumped at the chance. We were newlyweds. We had love, optimism, and—perhaps most importantly—blissful naïveté. Maybe it was the kind of idea that only a writer and an out-of-work architect could love, but the romance of a cottage in the mountains overwhelmed the scent of cabin-fever that our friends and family caught in the place. “You’re going to live in there?” our parents asked when we sent them a photo. “Of course!” we replied. “Isn’t it great?!”

And so we set about moving in and finding places for all our stuff. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to just have fewer things. For some, this is part of the appeal—being a smugly self-satisfied minimalist is one of the clichés of small-house living—but we weren’t really into counting all our things and only keeping 100. Instead, we took what we needed, and the rest ended up in a friend’s basement.

This done, we settled, quite snuggly, into our new home. The grand tour takes but a moment: The main room has a bed, a table, two chairs and two small dressers. Behind that, a 4’x4’ kitchen sports two electric burners, a mini-fridge and toaster oven. A similarly sized bathroom manages to fit a shower, toilet and sink. What more, we asked ourselves, could we need?

We’ve found living in a small space to be, above all, practical. It’s less money and less work, meaning we have more time to enjoy the mountains that we moved here for. To us, the choice to ‘live lightly’ isn’t primarily about having a smaller environmental footprint—though that certainly is a byproduct. It’s a choice to have the time to focus on the things that matter to us, by keeping the necessity of shelter in perspective.

We find ourselves visiting our friend’s basement less often; the stuff in storage, it turns out, isn’t all that important. Most of what we really need fits. When the weather is fair, we eat outside in the yard. If it rains, we curl up inside or read on the porch. And when we get cold, we make tea: the mugs are warm in our hands and the stove heats up the whole house.

And when the house is a mess, we take a few minutes and put things back in their places. After three months in such a small home, you find that it’s not just your things that find their rightful place, but you as well.

The Signal Shed: All photos courtesy of Ryan Lingard Design

If you look for it, you might not see it. Rising high above Wallowa Lake, hidden in the shadows of the Eagle Cap Wilderness in Eastern Oregon sits the award-winning Signal Shed—a 130-square-foot modern mountain outpost. Built with mostly recycled materials, the outbuilding is simple in detail, yet beautiful in design: recaptured wood siding is stained dark to help the shed blend into the natural landscape. Cedar shutters protect the windows and secure the interior in the winter. A large, sliding barn door opens to create an outdoor living space. And the entire structure is built on floating piers to lessen its impact.

It’s the ultimate expression of minimalism. In fact, a judge from a prominent architecture magazine recently praised it as “the absence of almost everything.” And we tend to agree. Its simple beauty, low-impact design and effortless utilitarianism reflects the same principles that we follow in our design process.

To get a closer look, we decided, with some stealthy sleuthing, to track down its mastermind—Ryan Lingard. The Portland architect was more than willing to sit down with us and share his insight into his process of sustainable design, off-the-grid building, and how he did it all for under $10k.

OTG: Let’s start from the beginning; how did this all start?
Ryan: We had owned the land for about a year when, during a backpacking trip in the Wallowas, a bear attacked our tent. At that moment, we knew we needed to build something a little more secure. But we also didn’t need everything you would find in a traditional vacation home, nor did it seem appropriate to bring in all the traditional utilities and affect the landscape. We also wanted a structure that would sit more delicately in the landscape: to be modern and minimal, but on the other hand, fit into the pallet of how we saw the environment. We also wanted it to appear as if it was a utility building or a lean-to shelter, so in passing by, you didn’t realize it was an actual home. In the end, we built this utilitarian structure that fills this kind of pragmatic protection of warmth and security that we weren’t getting out of a tent.

Did you have a certain approach or a process in designing the shed?
We wanted the structure to have the minimal support of camping, but offer the comfort of a more traditional residence. The big sliding barn door, which is probably one of the biggest architectural moves, is the nexus of that. We can throw that door open and have indoor/outdoor living, especially with the dock-like deck that cantilevers out.

Also, given how steep the lot was, building the whole cabin without an access road into the property was an enormous undertaking. One way we resolved the issue was by constructing this super-minimal pier foundation that sits on columns, so it serves the intent of sitting lightly on the landscape. It also makes it easy to minimize the amount of concrete and the amount of “earthwork” we had to do. It also decreased the amount of materials we had to bring in.

Since we would be gone for long periods of time, we also came up with the idea of using shutters as way to secure the shed. When they are closed, you can’t see any of the windows. And in the winter, when the interior lights are on, the rays seep through the slats in the siding to create this gorgeous, almost, sculptural piece.

Windows were purchased at the Rebuilding Center in Portland, Ore.

Obviously, you sourced sustainable materials: reused windows, recaptured wood. Do you feel like that put constraints on the design? Or were there some happy accidents?
Some things did impact the design, like the windows. We had an idea of proportion and function and we knew we wanted a series of horizontal sliding windows, as well as a focal window looking out across to the mountain and the tram. We were willing to pay for new windows if we found the right ones, but we were able to find some great old windows from the Rebuilding Center in Portland.

For the recaptured wood, we found this character that runs a portable saw mill. He travels to different locations where he finds fallen tress. And his story was much like ours: he had built three signal sheds, connected them with two roofs and now lives in them with his wife and two kids. So it felt good to have a wholesome environmental story around the material, but also the added romance that we were doing the same thing.

The blackened wood shutter siding helps the shed blend into the shadows of the surrounding landscape. Photo by Ryan Lingard Design

So in designing the shed, were you influenced by any current design or architectural trends?
Basically, the intent of the whole project was to be very quiet in the landscape, to hide in the shadows, and let the views and the surrounding wilderness be the focus, not the structure. Ultimately, the design was more driven by pragmatic and practical ideas, then a specific style. The minimal architecture lends itself to a very basic, but high-quality streamlined design. I guess that is an architectural movement, but it is also an ethos that is much larger than a style: the idea that everything has to be functional. So you don’t have extra trim or extra frames.

That’s a lot like our philosophy; great design is not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away, when everything has a purpose, a function. So given this approach, what did you learn in the process of building the shed?
Before the shed, I had an almost academic appreciation for builders and craftsman. But through this process, I garnered an enormous respect for the art of crafting something that appears rather simple. Building something simple can actually be much more challenging, especially when you are in a rural environment and the collective resources and knowledge in the building community are otherwise very traditional, which I understand and respect, but it can make things more challenging.

You know, it’s easy when you go camping, because you know you’re only going to be out there for a few days, maybe a week, and then go home. But when you are building a structure and are intentionally eliminating certain luxuries, well, that can be hard for people to understand.

Yeah, you realize all of the crap that you don’t need.
Yeah, exactly. When you go camping for a lengthy period of time, everything gets reset. You come home, turn on a faucet or flip on a light switch and are amazed at the convenience. It’s exactly like that comedian, Louis C.K. says when he jokes about people who complain on airplanes, and he’s like, “Really? We’re flying dude! This is amazing.”

©Daniel Sharp

Last month in The Thought Kitchen, we sat down with Jamie Bainbridge, our Director of Textile Development and Sustainability, to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Eco Index—a collaborative effort to create an industry-wide standard in sustainability. This month, we’re taking a deeper dive into the nitty gritty details of this innovative tool and putting our Men’s Vice Blazer to the test. Find out what we learned and how it’s going to change the way we do business.

How It Works: The Cliffs Notes Version
Building a tool that assesses the environmental impact of thousands of products produced by hundreds of companies is challenging, and some might even say, downright impossible. That’s why the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) built the Eco Index as a three-tiered system, so that any company, no matter how small or large, can evaluate their business piece-by-piece.

All three levels—guidelines, indicators and metrics—allow companies to evaluate their products based on two crucial elements: lifecycle stages such as packaging, transportation and materials; and impact such as the use of waste, water and other resources.

The first level—guidelines—is merely a set of recommendations that companies can use to lessen their impact: use more recycled content, minimize packaging, institute end-of-life design policies, etc… The second level—indicators—gets a bit more technical and even incorporates a scoring system that allows companies to assign points (we’ll take a closer look at indicators when we evaluate the Vice Blazer). And finally, the third tier—metrics—requires lots of number crunching and accounting that assigns values to each indicator. Confusing? Yes. Effective? We’ll see.

To get a better grasp on the set-up, think of it like this: guidelines ask what am I doing?, indicators ask how am I doing?, and metrics ask how much am I doing? But despite their qualitative and quantitative differences, every level is designed with the same goal in mind: to increase the transparency of the supply chain and lower the environmental footprint.

©Daniel Sharp

Sizing up the Vice Blazer: Materials and End of Life
So what does all of this mean for a company like Nau? To start, we can use the Eco Index indicators to evaluate each of our products. Take the Vice Blazer, for example. We picked three sample indicators to size up its environmental footprint and here’s what we learned:

1 Recycled Content
For this indicator, the Eco Index assigns points based on the percentage of recycled content that is used in the product (1 point for 10-24%, 2 points for 25-49%, etc…). But keep in mind, all scoring is merely an internal gauge of a company’s sustainability practices and, in no way, reflects a standardized ranking system (yet). Since the Vice Blazer is designed with 80% recycled polyester, we feel like we’re pulling our weight in this category. However, we still keep an eye on technology to see if more improvements can be made.

2 Renewable Content
In order to produce the premium quality of the fabric in the Vice Blazer, we added 20% certified organic cotton which reduces the use of pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals. It also gives recycled polyester the smooth, soft feel of cotton.

3 Designed for End of Life
We designed the Vice Blazer to be recycled at the end of its long life, including the labels which are composed of recycled polyester. However, there are two components that could be improved based on this indicator: the back zipper and the cotton content which are both unable to be recycled at this time.

Even though organic cotton is a renewable resource, it is considered a non-polyester “contaminant” and is, therefore, dissolved through the recycling process. In the end, we are throwing away 20% of the garment even though 80% is being recycled and reused.

This begs the question: do we sacrifice the soft quality of organic cotton to produce a completely100% recycled blazer? Or do we include cotton, a renewable resource to create a more premium garment that looks and feels better to the consumer?

These are the design and sustainability questions we face every day as a company dedicated to creating beautiful performance products that balance the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. And with the launch of the Eco Index’s pilot program in September, these are the tough questions every apparel company will have to answer in creating more sustainable and transparent product and supply chains. However, one, lingering question remains: will it actually work?

Stay tuned: In part three of our three-part-series, we’ll explore the inaugural launch of the Eco Index pilot program and find out if it will actually live up to the hype.

Practicing the Pop-Up

Our friends at Warm Current have combined three of our favorite things—surfing, sustainability and giving back—and created an ingenious non-profit that helps underserved kids learn how to surf. For the past three years, they’ve collected tired, old wetsuits and surfboards, polished them up, and used the gear to outfit kid’s surf camps across the Pacific Northwest, Peru, Mexico and Morocco.

Now, for the first time, they’ve launched a brilliant fundraising campaign, The Faces of Warm Current, that will help spread the love of surfing and the outdoors to kids that would otherwise go without.

This is how it works: From now until July 31^st, you can donate a mere five bucks and purchase a square containing a message or photo that will become part of a giant mosaic on the side of the kid’s surf camp trailer. The money will be used to buy new kid’s surfboards, new wetsuits and a trailer that will tour up and down the West Coast.

Even if you’ve never ridden a wave, this is a cause to get on board with. Break out your old wetsuit and send it their way. Teach a lesson. Donate a five spot (or more). And if you haven’t done so already, check out their website: Warmcurrent.org.

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This week in The Thought Kitchen, we sit down with Jamie, our Director of Textile Development and Sustainability, to get the inside scoop on her collaborative efforts on the Eco Index, a new tool that will take the BS out of “green” and set an industry-wide standard in sustainability. For Nau, it will give us—and many other companies—a deeper understanding of our environmental impact and how we can make it better. Sounds too good to be true, but it’s already happening.

There’s lots of buzz about the Eco Index, but I’m still not sure what it is or how it works.
Jamie Bainbridge: Basically, it’s a grassroots effort that was started about three-and-a-half years ago by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) to help create a tool that would give companies a deeper understanding of the environmental impact of their products. About 100 member companies of OIA, Nau being one of them, came together in an industry-wide collaborative effort to build an open source, business-to-business tool that would evaluate a product’s overall environmental impact.

Wow. That sounds like a lot of work.
It is. But that’s not all. Last year, the world’s largest apparel companies—like Walmart and Target and others representing up to 50% of the apparel world—formed the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and approached OIA to join efforts in building a larger, more comprehensive tool that would be scalable for both small and large companies. So, ultimately, we had to find consensus from a long list of participants.

But, keep in mind, we are creating an industry-wide tool based on shared values of sustainability and conservation, the same values that have driven the outdoor industry since the beginning. And we are creating a common language across supply chains and manufacturing so that everyone is judged by the same standards.

It’s great in theory, but how does it work?
A product will be evaluated across its product lifecycles using the lenses of land use, water, waste, greenhouse gases and energy. Of course, this is a lot to think about, especially for companies just beginning the process, so we suggest starting with one aspect of your business, like packaging and integrating these small changes into your everyday business.

Makes sense, but what’s Nau got to do with this massive undertaking? And how is it going to affect the way things are run around here?
Well, I’ve been deep in the trenches of developing the content of the tool alongside my colleagues from REI, Patagonia, Timberland, Columbia, North Face and Mountain Equipment Co-op. And, essentially, it will allow us to have a deeper level of understanding of our products so that we’re always improving, progressing and evaluating the way thing are done. It’s going to allow us to make forward progress with our goals in sustainability, goals that we had no way to quantify before.

So we’re all going to be on the same playing field? Nau, Nike, REI and Walmart?
Yep, we will all be asking the same questions.

But this is a B2B tool, so what does it mean for the consumer?
For businesses, it will allow transparency in the way products are designed and built. For consumers, it’s a building block that allows them to trust our brand. And who knows, in time, it might just become a consumer-facing label.

And when is the debut of this ground-breaking tool?
Hopefully, we will pilot the tool in September using some of our own key products to evaluate the tool and give feedback before its official launch.

So this is really happening?
Oh yeah. You better believe it.

Next month, in part two of our three-part-series, we’ll take a deeper dive into the Eco Index and find out how a few of our key styles size up when put to the test.

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