The Overall Winner for Fall/Winter 21/22 of the Scandinavian Outdoor Award is the Bergans of Norway (+ Spinnova/Halley Stevensons) Bergans future labs 05.B Anorak.
Spinnova material
The story behind the Bergans future labs 05.B Anorak is in my opinion quite spectacular. Last winter we gave the Sustainability Award to the future.labs 05.A backpack. This urban style backpack is made from fully sustainable and circular Spinnova material. Spinnova is a cellulose-based material and that is in its own right not new, but Spinnova has developed a never-seen-before solution that makes production far more sustainable.
Endlessly recyclable
The Spinnova production is a closed process and the manufacturer has removed harmful chemicals. The source for the Spinnova material can be a forest product like trees from production forests, it can be textile or agricultural waste. The genius thing about Spinnova is that it can be continuously recycled to allow a true circular material flow. With the future.labs 05.A backpack Bergans – that partnered with Spinnova – just set an example of what is heading for in the future. We – as Scandinavian Outdoor Award jury – found this a major achievement in innovation and it has the potential to change the entire textile industry.
Bergans future labs 05.B Anorak
With the Sustainability Award to the future.labs 05.A backpack last year we also knew that we gave an award to a product that was in a pretty early development stage. We hoped that real products for our outdoor life would be available to the public shortly. With the 05.B Anorak the proof is in the pudding. The Bergans future labs 05.B Anorak is made of a mix of Spinnova fibres, Tencel and Organic Cotton. The reason behind this mix is that Bergans is not able at the moment to lay hands on enough Spinnova material to produce enough 05.B Anoraks to make it sellable. With this material combination this is possible. Although the material mix is not a mono-material from a manufacturing side, Bergans claims it is mono-material when it comes to recycling. According to Bergans the Anorak ‘can be recycled without disassembly into new Spinnova material without the use of harsh chemicals.’
Price
The fact that Bergans claims it is fully recyclable also has influence on the price of the Bergans future labs 05.B Anorak. It retails for € 350,00 and the price buildup is quite interesting too. The Anorak is part of ‘The Collection of Tomorrow’ and the € 350,00 is priced as € 200 in material costs and € 150 in manufacturing costs. Owners of The Collection of Tomorrow products can return their – for example – Anorak at the end of its life to bergans.future.labs where it will be recycled into new Spinnova material. Having already paid for the material, the Anorak price will be similarly reduced. In this way you borrow the material like we do with glass bottles and softdrink cans for example and you get your deposit back when you buy something new.
Next level of circularity
Due to the Covid situation I was not able to test the Bergans myself, but three of my jury colleagues did. Cath, Marie and Jana all agreed that the material mix of the Bergans future labs 05.B Anorak ‘is lovely to touch and the jacket itself looks great’. For an outdoor jacket it is important that the fabric is waterproof. Well, the fabric by itself is not water resistant. To make it water resistant, it is treated with a traditional Halley Stevensons wax that does not compromise the circularity of the anorak. Re-waxing can be done by the consumer as needed. We have heard this before but I rather like that I can adjust the waterproofness and breathability to my own liking in some other gear that I own. Overal we concluded that Bergans ‘has taken the concept of circularity to the next level’.
- Price is € 350,00
- Weight 600 grams (size XS), 700 grams (L)
Information
- More on Spinnova here
- More on the bergans.future.labs project here
- Link to Bergans here
Any remarks or questions on the Bergans of Norway (+ Spinnova/Halley Stevensons) bergans.future.labs 05.B Anorak? Send me a comment.
