Haglöfs Restored: “Second hand gear, first hand adventures”

One of your mottos is ‘Outsiders by Nature’ and this is definitely out of the box, a first in the market, what made you develop this kind of process?

A key pillar of our sustainability strategy is to keep products in use as long as possible to make the best use of what we already have. We do this through the design and development of high quality and durable products and by supporting consumers in their adventures by helping them to care for and repair their products. Haglöfs Restored is the next step in this process and focuses on products that have been discarded, but still have some life left in them. Many resources, including energy, water and raw materials, are used in the production of our equipment, so every time we extend the life of the product through good care, repair or restoration, we know that we have made better use of the resources that were used in the first place. More importantly, we avoid producing another product with a lot of new resources.

Has this new process complicated your production chain? Or are you very satisfied with the result and the optimisation of the production process?

One of the main challenges of setting up Haglöfs Restored is that it is a different business model to the one we have had for over 100 years – one that we are not prepared to do in a practical or efficient way. It involves returning the product to us instead of sending it to our warehouses, it requires facilities for washing, reprofiling, repairing and packaging that are different from the normal production facilities we are used to, and it involves handling and processing a large number of unique items instead of large quantities of the same item. For these reasons it is not possible to do this within our own production process, so we have partnered with The Renewal Workshop which was created to provide exactly this kind of business model.

What impact can this type of process have on sustainability?

Keeping products in use for longer is one of the most effective ways of reducing the overall impact of that individual product, making the most of all the resources that have gone into making it and, although it is a small first step, it helps us to start moving towards a more circular and less wasteful system than today’s linear ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ model.

Will the products have reduced costs in this case?

Haglöfs Restored products are discounted from the original retail price.

With the lifetime guarantee, are you sure that you will almost always be able to get your products back, even those in poor condition? Or do you have different solutions for every situation?

Once we receive the products back, they are assessed for their potential to be repaired.  Some need no repair at all – just a good wash – while others may be so damaged that they cannot be repaired to an acceptable standard. In this case, these products can be dismantled to obtain spare parts to repair other products and anything left over can be sent for recycling.

Do you think this kind of process, together with The Renewal Workshops, can make people more aware of the environmental impact of clothing production?

We want to show that products can still have a life even if they have been used before and that buying ‘new’ every time is not the only option. Along the way we hope that consumers will learn more about the options available to reduce the environmental impact of clothing. However, even if they don’t and only buy clothes because they are more affordable or have found a particular product they like, we have made progress towards a less wasteful system.

This is definitely a milestone on the journey towards the brand’s vision of becoming the first responsible outdoor performance brand, do you feel this is the end point or just one of the steps towards improvement?

This is definitely just one step along the way and there is always room for improvement in the many areas of sustainability that we will continue to work on. For example, we are also working on reducing and offsetting the carbon emissions from the production of our equipment.

If someone has old Haglöfs garments, how can they deliver them to you? 

The products can be delivered to one of our branded shops or you can contact our customer service department for shipping instructions. We are working on options to make returning products even easier and hope to share more information about this soon.