Category: Eco

COP27 : a greener outdoor industry

So, COP27. Twelve months since COP26, when nations adopted the Glasgow Climate Pact, aiming to turn the 2020s into a decade of climate action and support.

Members of the Re-Action Collective are working to do exactly that within the active outdoor industry, based on our manifesto of principles supporting a greener future for our planet.

WhoSki.com is an active member of the Re-Action group. You can read the manifesto below.

As COP 26 President Alok Sharma says: “It is critical that we do everything within our means to keep 1.5C in reach, as we promised in the Glasgow Climate Pact.”

Every action that we as an industry and as individuals can take is another step towards a more sustainable future.

The Re-Action Collective Manifesto

Re-Action says:

👉 We cannot continue to consume products in the way we are doing today.

🌱 Our manifesto represents system change. A change towards better maintenance of our kit, a change towards repair, reuse, rental, repurpose and a desire to find other circular solutions that will keep us playing in the outdoors.

🌿 Join us!

👉 As an individual, pledge to buy once, and buy well. Maintain and repair your gear, donate or resell it responsibly once you have finished with it. Support a Re-Action member.

👉 As a business, open conversations with your suppliers, introduce a second-hand rail, find a way to provide repair services to your customers, offer rental, identify and reduce waste

Club Europe supporting sustainability through WhoSki.com

A huge cheer for school ski trip provider Club Europe, for taking strong steps towards improving sustainability in its operations. Not only is it recommending WhoSki.com as the place to buy and sell secondhand ski clothing, it is looking at ways to reduce its environmental impact across all areas.

The company is the latest to partner with us to help keep pre-loved ski clothing in active usage for longer and make skiing more affordable.

As Club Europe says: “The idea is simple: reduce the quantity of new ski clothes that are bought and old ones that are sent to landfill, by enabling families to easily buy and sell pre-loved ski wear.”

What to pack for a family ski trip

KEEPING SKI CLOTHES ON THE PISTE

Club Europe will be helping hundreds of youngsters take a school ski trip this season. If even a fraction of those young skiers and their families buy and sell their ski clothing via WhoSki.com, they will potentially help keep a mountain of clothing out of landfill and reduce its carbon footprint by extending its active life.

WhoSki.com co-founder Nicola Davenport says: “We are delighted to be working with Club Europe, a school ski trip provider that is committed to sustainable business.

“Raising awareness of WhoSki.com as a secondhand marketplace for good quality ski clothing helps not only keep textiles in circulation but also raises the profile of sustainability in the wintersports sector generally. The more we all do to think #SkiGreen, the brighter the future for our mountains.”

Club Europe is recommending WhoSki.com as a first stop for buying specialist kit for a school ski trip, as well as the best place to sell on unwanted but good quality ski clothes that no longer fit.

Club Europe: Committed to sustAinability

Alison Wareham, Club Europe’s sustainability lead, adds: “As a responsible travel provider, we are committed to sustainability in our development, operations and marketing. Partnering with WhoSki.com not only helps the environment but gives families a small financial boost – saving money on ski wear and perhaps by selling their own unwanted ski fit, making a few pennies too.”

Read more:
School ski trip essential clothing

What to pack for a family ski trip

WhoSki.com : best for Business Innovation

Team WhoSki.com enjoyed a super-successful Merton Best Business Awards ceremony last night, taking home a trophy for best Business Innovation – AND a runner-up award for Sustainable Impact.

Judges put us in first place for innovation, stating our entry demonstrated ‘new skills, approaches and attitudes’. Exactly what we are all about at WhoSki.com: a new approach to wintersports that puts #SkiGreen and sustainability front of mind.

Circular economy wins

Making sure you extend the active life of your ski and snowboard clothing by selling it on via WhoSki.com when it’s of no more use to you, is one of the easiest ways to #SkiGreen. It also helps make a trip to the mountains more affordable by keeping down the cost of essential clothes and enabling you to monetise your existing ski wardrobe.

Back to the awards…

After that first win, WhoSki.com co-founders Sally and Nicola were delighted to be called back to the stage as second place runners up for the Sustainable Impact category. Our entry was pipped to the post by the brilliant Polka Theatre in our hometown of Wimbledon. Congratulations to them!

Keeping textiles out of landfill

Remember: experts calculate that extending the active life of clothing by just
three months per item, leads to a 5-10% reduction in its carbon, water and waste footprint.

By choosing secondhand and re-selling on WhoSki.com, you are helping keep valuable textiles out of landfill and in circulation.

A top awards night

A big thank you to all Merton Best Business Awards organisers, sponsors and attendees at the event, which took place at Wimbledon’s AELTC All England Club. It was a treat to meet so many talented, interesting and committed business owners, staff and volunteers. Well done all.

Is the snowsports industry ready for a sustainable future?

As Sally hurtled off to the Mountain Trade Network‘s autumn LISTEX conference at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead last week, delegates were revving up for a debate on how the snowsports industry is waking up to sustainable options for the future.

The panel covered a range of topics including ski and snowboard clothing, climate change, aiming for net zero, and what seems to always be the most contentious item for the wintersports industry: the transport you use to get to your ski resort.

Sally’s top learnings from the debate:

1 Switzerland has a transparent approach to sustainability

Ski giant Switzerland has opted for an umbrella approach to sustainability, providing resorts, hotels and other key snow sports businesses with clear directives on how to develop their green credentials.

For visitors it’s easy to understand, as businesses will be awarded three level ‘badges’: Level 3 – Leading; Level 2 – Engaged; and Level 1 – Committed. It is a simple way to judge how far down the sustainability route a Swiss business, service provider or destination has travelled.

2 You can’t do everything immediately, so aim for manageable targets en route to net zero

It can be all-consuming trying to do everything at once, so a business aiming for net zero should break down its actions into manageable, achievable goals. Charlie Cotton from ecollective calls this the ‘7% rule’, whereby you make regular 7% improvements on the road to net zero.

Extra good news: HotelPlan, which owns ski holiday brands including Inghams and Esprit, has signed up to reach net zero: a big shout out to them.

3 Climate change is affecting resorts already

According to University of Surrey sustainability PhD student Harry Rice, there is growing concern over the impact of increasing temperatures on lower snowsports resorts, the pressure climate change will put on higher resorts and the impact of increased temperatures on the slopes.

Ski resorts are starting to look at how they adapt to this change, weighing up social and economic progress and how the adaptations could impact more heavily on the mountain environment.

4 More of us are driving to the slopes (and it’s easy by EV…)

James Gambrill from the Ski Club of Great Britain presented figures showing that post-pandemic more of us have driven to the mountains.

Reasons for this are unclear, however. Is it because of an increase in airline flight cancellations, passenger worries about catching Covid, price hikes or are we starting to think ‘greener’ in our travel choices?

On a positive note, the ease of driving an EV to the ski slopes is aided by improved EV charging facilities through France.

5 Young people positively embrace BUYING secondhand ski CLOTHES

It is estimated that 64% of young people prefer to buy secondhand clothes. Not just because they are more affordable, but also for the bragging rights: pre-loved fashion is very much on trend and growing across the market.

It’s time to feed that demand. Clear out your ski clothes from your wardrobe. List them for sale (at WhoSki.com, obviously). Lend them, mend them, re-use or re-sell them. Just make sure you don’t allow your ski jackets, ski pants and salopettes to end up in landfill.

Fact: ski textiles are likely to be around long after many of us have stopped skiing. 

Expert panel

The eclectic panel of international speakers at LISTEX included Charlie Cotton from travel consultancy ecollective, Myriam Ziesack of the Swiss tourist board which runs Swisstainable, Harry Rice, climate change and sustainability PhD student, our own Sally Warren, co-founder of WhoSki.com, and Iain Martin of SkiFlightFree.

LISTEX, the London International Ski Trade Exchange, is a B2B event that brings together many of the movers and shakers in the snowsports world, from industry leaders to independent specialists.

Thank you to The Snow Centre, Hemel Hempstead, for hosting and Babsi Lapwood of the Mountain Trade Network for organising.

What is the circular economy?

WhoSki.com is a proud circular economy business – but what does this even mean?

In the simplest terms, circularity means keeping stuff – like ski clothes – in use for as long as possible, in either its existing form or at its highest value.

For example, rather than taking to the dump a ski jacket or snowboard pants that you no longer want or need, you make sure they are re-used as secondhand clothing by someone else while they are fit for purpose. Selling them on via WhoSki.com as long as they are wearable extends the life cycle of your pre-loved ski clothes, cuts their carbon footprint and reduces their impact on the environment.

Experts calculate that extending the active life of clothing by just three months per item, would lead to a 5-10% reduction in the carbon, water and waste footprints of your family’s secondhand ski outfits. Find out more on our ski eco page.

THE PUREST FORM OF CIRCULARITY

A peer-to-peer marketplace like WhoSki.com is the purest form of a circular economy business. Other circularity business models include taking existing items and ensuring they are either re-used as something else, or their components are recycled into other useful items. Doing so ensures that materials such as textiles, metal or plastics are re-purposed rather than sent to landfill or incinerated.

WHY THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY MATTERS

Textiles are among the five main areas where the circular economy can make a difference because they are a major contributor to current waste volumes, touch all of us at some point in our lives and show real potential for improvement. Find out more about this at the ReLondon website.

ReLondon (formerly LWARB) is a partnership of the Mayor of London and London boroughs to help the city waste less and re-use, repair, share and recycle more.

Similar organisations exist elsewhere in the UK. For example, Wales has Circular Communities Cymru.

In Glasgow, the Chamber of Commerce runs the Circular Glasgow Network.

It highlights textiles as among the key sectors where the circular economy can help reduce carbon emissions, focusing on “secondhand, re-sale and rental models that extend the lifetime of garments” as key. Circular Glasgow also points out that “the impact of the added logistics of cleaning and transport must be carefully considered”. Selling your secondhand ski clothing peer-to-peer via WhoSki.com keeps these logistics to a minimum.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

If you want to find out more about the circular economy, we recommend visiting the websites linked to above. Additionally, the Zero Waste Scotland website has much useful information as does the Ellen MacArthur Foundation which has long been researching and lobbying on circularity issues.

Image by Freepik

WhoSki.com supporting Secondhand September

WhoSki.com is all about making best use of secondhand clothing, so naturally we are 100% supporting Oxfam’s Secondhand September campaign.

The campaign – now in its fourth year – encourages us all to buy secondhand before we consider buying new. Do it properly and you will buy NOTHING NEW all month. Find out more about the Secondhand September campaign here.

LIST YOUR SECONDHAND SKI COTHING NOW

September is good timing for skiers and snowboarders, as it’s the perfect time to sort out your ski clothing into what still fits and you want to keep, versus what doesn’t fit or you are tired of and is good enough quality to sell on.

Listing it for sale NOW on WhoSki.com gives you the best chance of getting no longer needed ski clothing out of your wardrobe and into circulation. Selling it via our peer-to-peer marketplace has (at least) three benefits:

Click here to visit the WhoSki.com shop where you can list your clothing for sale – registration is free. We donate to teen mental health charity stem4 on every sale.

Are you taking part in Secondhand September? Let us know via social media: @WeWhoSki on Twitter and Instagram / https://www.facebook.com/whoskiLLP at Facebook.

What happens to our unwanted clothing?

According to Greenpeace, as little as 10% of donated clothing, for example to charity shops, is sold on for re-use in the country where it was collected. The rest is likely to be broken down and used as rags – aka ‘down-cycled’ – with more than half exported to an overseas market. That usually means Africa or Eastern Europe.

What happens to secondhand clothing once exported?

Some is sold at markets. This is not necessarily a good outcome. For example, the scale of imports of unwanted clothing from Europe and the US has decimated the indigenous textiles and tailoring industries in many African countries. To counteract this problem, Rwanda imposed high tariffs on used clothing imports followed by a total ban on their importation in 2018.

Increasing amounts of fast fashion find their way into the clothing markets of the Global South, but only around 10% re-sells there. Much is poor quality or unsuitable for local needs and is therefore unusable.

What happens to unsold secondhand clothing in the Global South?

With limited or non-existent recycling facilities or infrastructure in the Global South, our unwanted clothing rarely comes to a sustainable end.

Incineration: The rising cost of gas and oil raises the danger that textile waste will increasingly be burned to generate power. Garment factories in Cambodia were found recently to be incinerating off-cuts including tags, labels, footwear, fabric and garment scraps.

The result? Burning acrylic garments releases plastic microfibres and other toxic chemicals with knock-on impacts on human health in both the short- and long-term. Incinerating unwanted textiles also increases the carbon footprint of clothing made in foreign factories for the European and US markets. It is also a massive waste of resources.

Landfill: The Global South is the principal destination for secondhand – and new – clothing that cannot be re-sold or recycled. A recent report from The Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) claims up to 40% of used clothing exported to African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania has no market value and is basically just textile waste.

The result? Piles of dumped clothing in locations like the coast of Ghana, the Atacama Desert in Chile and river banks in East Africa. Unwanted ski clothing is now also turning up in the textile dumps of the Global South.

What can we all do to reduce textile waste?

The obvious answer is buy less and throw away less. If every item of clothing was worn for longer, its carbon footprint would reduce considerably and the demand for new clothing would fall. There would be less wastage and fewer used textiles would be exported.

Buying and selling secondhand clothing such as ski and snowboard wear is a way to extend its life and prevent it from being shredded, incinerated or ending up in the Global South where it pollutes the environment.

Do your bit for sustainability: make this the season you choose pre-loved ski wear.

WhoSki.com: best business finalist

Exciting news: WhoSki.com has been selected as a finalist in not just one but TWO categories at our local Merton Best Business Awards.

We have made it through to the finals in the categories of: Sustainable Impact AND Business Innovation.

As a circular economy business driving sustainability in the wintersports sector and helping keep ski wear in active use, WhoSki.com is a proud member of the local business community in the London Borough of Merton. However, our mission extends far beyond the Wimbledon SW19 area where we have our HQ.

REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

The beauty of the WhoSki.com platform is that it doesn’t matter where you live. By linking into our community of skiers and snowboarders, you gain access to a UK-wide community of people who want to update their wintersports wardrobe with good-as-new, affordable clothing.

So if you’ve got bags full of kids’ (and adults’) ski clothing that no longer suits your needs, post it for sale at WhoSki.com and you’ll be helping reduce the carbon footprint of every item sold. Remember too, we donate 10% of our commission to teen mental health charity stem4 on every sale.

If you’re looking for a new outfit, think pre-loved before you rent or buy, and you will be keeping emissions to a minimum – as well as making a charitable donation.

EXTEND YOUR CLOTHING’S ACTIVE LIFE

Experts calculate that extending the active life of clothing by just three months per item, leads to a 5-10% reduction in its carbon, water and waste footprint. By buying and selling at WhoSki.com you are helping keeping valuable textiles out of landfill and in circulation.

With ski clothing now starting to turn up in dumps of unwanted clothing in the Global South, it is more important than ever to make sure your secondhand fashion doesn’t make things worse for our beleaguered environment. Make this the season you think sustainable in every area of your life, including skiing.

Find out more about the eco implications of your ski clothing here.

Get repairing – with Re-Action

We are throwing WhoSki.com’s support behind the #ReAction10000repairs challenge, which launches today.

Reckon your sewing is up to mending a simple repair, extending the life of a garment, supporting the sustainable economy? Even if you don’t think you can manage it yourself, try finding a local repair shop – maybe your local dry cleaner? – that can help out.

The Re-Action Collective aims to log 10,000 repairs by the end of 2022. The goal is to normalize the practice of bringing clothing and equipment back to use through repair, rather than throwing them away.

Reduce waste, cut emissions

Why? Because as a planet we have finite resources: we simply must make our stuff last longer. It’s a way to reduce waste, cut carbon emissions and limit the effects of climate change.

It’s another step, like selling on your ski clothing once you no longer want / need it, thinking about buying secondhand before you buy new, or renting an item rather than purchasing it. A means of extending the life of an existing item.

log your repairs

What are you waiting for? It’s time to get handy and start fixing the planet one item at a time. Find out how to get involved at ReAction’s 10,000 repairs page here.

And once it’s repaired, perhaps that ski garment might even be good enough to sell on at WhoSki.com when season 2022/23 comes around…

WhoSki.com at LISTEX

Look out for WhoSki.com at this week’s Mountain Trade Network conference – calling on other businesses in the wintersports industry to support our sustainability ambitions.

The theme of this year’s LISTEX conference is ‘Facing the Future’: a perfect match for WhoSki.com goals. Our business model is all about helping you reduce the carbon footprint of your ski and snowboard habit, keeping hard-to-recycle textiles in circulation and facilitating the resale of wintersports clothing.

We believe the best way to do this is by making it safe and simple to #PassItOn. That’s why we love working with other brands to spread the circularity message, supporting skiers and snowboarders to use the circular economy when buying and selling wintersports wear.

Reuse – Resale – Rental

We are delighted to see that others in the sustainability sector will also be present at LISTEX this week, taking place at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead. Joining us at the conference will be EcoSki.co.uk , One Tree At A Time , Snowcarbon , ProtectOurWinters UK – all among the organisations and businesses that we talk to often and are delighted to collaborate with in our joint goal to help the ski and snowboard industry become greener.

If you’re attending LISTEX on Wednesday (May 4), please pop into the 16.15 PITCH@LISTEX session where WhoSki.com will be presenting. Our Co-Founders Nicola and Sally will be at the event on and off on both days (May 4 and 5) so look out for us – we always love to connect with likeminded businesses.

We hope to see you there – or do get in touch if you can’t make it and want to know more.

Feed the Easter dash with a ski wear spring clean

Bookings for Easter ski trips are booming, with thousands planning a last-minute dash to the slopes to catch their first ski season in two years.

The return to the UK Passenger Locator Form has been scrapped, France has suspended its health pass requirements, meaning unvaccinated children and teens no longer need to test daily, and Austria has relaxed its proof of vax / test / recovery rules. Spain is free to enter, as is Norway where masks are pretty much non-existent, and fully vaccinated travellers will no longer need to provide a pre-entry COVID-19 test result to enter Canada from April 1.

If you want to ski this spring : the choice of destination is wide. At last.

As a result, and after a long period off the piste, we are hearing from many people whose ski clothes (or their kids’ ski clothes) no longer fit. We can confirm: demand for good quality pre-loved secondhand ski clothing is HIGH. Which makes now the perfect time to sell on your quality ski and snowboard clothes via WhoSki.com.

Keep hard-to-recycle ski clothing out of landfill

You may already be aware that wintersports wear is notoriously difficult to recycle because of its mixed materials and specialist coatings. It’s also harder to sell on through charity shops because of the limited market. A terrifying 300,000 tonnes of textiles is dumped in landfill every year. So do your bit for the environment by thinking secondhand when you buy your next ski and snowboard outfit. Check the listings in the WhoSki.com shop before you think about buying new.

We donate to charity on every sale

And if you have ski clothes still in good condition but which you no longer need, it is so simple to upload them for sale at the WhoSki.com marketplace.

Registration is free and takes just a couple of minutes. Uploading clothes for sale is so simple you can do it from your smartphone.

We donate 10% of our commission on every sale to teenage mental health charity stem4. That means you are doing good for the environment AND charity every time you buy and sell at WhoSki.com.

What’s stopping you? Click through to our marketplace to get going. And enjoy that Easter ski break: you deserve it.

Hurry to WhoSki.com for half-term ski trip essentials

  • Half-term ski trip booked: CHECK
  • Boxes of wintersports clothing retrieved from the loft: CHECK

Like so many others, it’s two years since I last enjoyed a ski holiday (thanks for nothing, pandemic), and – predictably – half the family’s winter wardrobe doesn’t fit.

Sounds familiar? With just a fortnight until thousands of us hit the slopes, there is no chance that any ski or snowboard clothing donated to the charity shop will be sorted and on sale in time to help out another family this season.

But there is still time to shake down your good-as-new clothes, upload them to WhoSki.com (using our new, super-simple marketplace tech) and see them go to a good home.

FIXED-PRICE INSTANT SALES MEAN THERE’S STILL TIME TO SELL – and buy

So if you’re also having a ski kit clear-out, why not sell on your unwanted good-as-new clothing before you head off? And browse our re-launched WhoSki.com marketplace (new items being added all the time) to fill the gaps in your family’s ski and snowboard wardrobe.

Sales via our website are fixed-price so you don’t have to wait for an auction to come to an end, with transactions handled safely by trusted provider Stripe. Find out more about how to buy and sell via WhoSki.com here.

It’s free to register at WhoSki.com, and we donate 10% of our commission to teen mental health charity stem4 on every sale.

Clear out your wardrobe, prevent still useable ski clothing from going to landfill AND do some good: what are you waiting for?

Remember, too, to save putting away the stuff you won’t use again by posting it for sale on WhoSki.com when you return. It’s so simple to use our new upload system, you could do it from your phone while hanging around at the airport or in the car on the way home. Simply register, upload pics and details and click POST LISTING. It is literally that easy.

You’ll be helping people who ski later in the season (at Easter, for example) as well as the environment. Did you know that around 75% of clothing donated to charity shops fails to find a home?