Tag: circular economy

Ski wear from the Alps – with ZERO carbon footprint

Ski resort workers wear technical, branded ski clothing through the season – but what happens to it when the snow melts? This year, some of those ski clothes have been repaired, refreshed, refurbished and will be back in active usage – thanks to a zero carbon footprint collaboration between WhoSki.com and our Alpine eco-partner One Tree at a Time.

All logos have been obscured or removed, with the ski jackets, fleeces and tops – all little-used and good as new – washed and refurbished before making their way back to the UK from the Alps this summer with ZERO carbon footprint.

One Tree jackets. Eco ski wear from the Alps
One Tree ski jacket. Ski wear from the Alps - with zero carbon footprint
One Tree mid layer ski jackets. Eco ski wear from the Alps

Aren’t they gorgeous? Bright, stylish, rescued and repaired. And now on sale at WhoSki.com.

a secondhand success story

A secondhand success story. But just a few months ago, they were end of season cast-offs from seasonal ski resort workers in the Alps.

You’ve probably never thought about what happens to the branded ski clothing used by saisonnaire staff when the snow melts. Barely used but no longer required, most corporate ski jackets, fleeces and mid-layers are probably headed for landfill or incineration.

It’s a story that our eco-partner One Tree at a Time is working tirelessly to re-tell. One Tree is a grassroots organisation based in the hamlet of Bozel in the French Alps, nestled between Courchevel and La Plagne. With their help, we are extending the life of these valuable textiles by enabling re-sale of their pre-loved and 100%-perfect ski clothing via our UK marketplace.

Like WhoSki.com, One Tree at a Time is among the sustainable outdoor activity organisations which belong to the Re-Action Collective, an international group of second handers, renters, repairers and individuals sharing ideas and resources to support and promote the messages of re-sale, re-purpose and re-use.

Here’s the story of how our range of One Tree at a Time refurbished eco ski wear made its way from the Alps to the WhoSki.com marketplace, where you can buy it now…

January 2023
In the Alps, One Tree starts sharing photos of the ex-ski company wear that is being donated for re-use. Good as new or unused items like ski jackets, fleeces, salopettes and woolly hats that are surplus to requirements and will never be used again.

February 2023
WhoSki.com co-founder Sally starts to wonder whether there is a sustainable way to extend the market for One Tree’s pre-loved and refurbished ski wear range to the UK. Selling it on via the WhoSki.com marketplace would help promote the re-use message, highlight the issue of winter sports sustainability and make top-quality ski clothing more affordable and accessible to a wider audience in the UK.

March 2023
Workers at One Tree are busy repairing and refreshing ski wear ready for re-sale. This entails removing all branding and logos, replacing travel company slogans with flashes of reclaimed fabric, making sure zips are in working order and that all items end up good as new.

One Tree workers repair and refresh the ski clothing
Image: Gwilym Thomas
One Tree seamstress in the Alps brings ski clothing back to life
Image: Gwilym Thomas

Manon, Justine and the rest of the talented One Tree at a Time repair team work at their sewing machines from home. A cottage industry of passionate, creative people working to provide circularity solutions. Their motivation? To keep textiles in active usage as long as possible.

The results are stunning: high quality, good as new ski and winter wear ready for re-use.

April 2023
Sally calls Gavin: “Any chance we can bring some of your ski gear to the UK? But we need to do it in as low-carbon a way as possible.” WhoSki.com and One Tree start working out how to transport the clothing back to the UK without generating emissions.

June 2023
Bingo! One of Gavin’s repairers will be driving back to the UK next month and has space in her car to bring over a batch of refurbished ski wear. It’s a journey that she will be taking anyway, so zero carbon footprint for our clothes.

July 2023
Justine arrives in Warrington with a couple of boxes of One Tree ski clothing. WhoSki.com co-founder Nicola’s sister lives nearby and is visiting the area anyway so agrees to collect the boxes and stash them at her home. So far: no extra miles.

Boxes of ski wear from the Alps - brought to the UK with zero carbon footprint
Boxes en route

August 2023
Arrival day! Nicola’s sister travels south for a family occasion, bringing with her the two boxes brimming with One Tree’s brightly coloured, expertly refurbished ski wear. It’s fabulous: unique, sustainable, perfect.
Next step: upload the pre-loved clothing – base layer fleeces, mid-layer puffers and ski jackets – to WhoSki.com ready for re-sale.

Boxes of ski wear from the Alps - brought to the UK with zero carbon footprint
Unboxing ski wear from the Alps - brought to the UK with zero carbon footprint

September 2023
Sustainable One Tree at a Time refurbished ski wear goes on sale at WhoSki.com. By buying one of these unique items of clothing, you are keeping an unrecyclable item in active usage, out of landfill and reducing its and your own carbon footprint. Ski wear from the Alps to the UK with zero carbon footprint: a circular economy success story.

If you live anywhere near SW London, visit the WhoSki.com stall in Wimbledon on Saturday September 16. We have a presence at the open-air Love Wimbledon Sustainable Market outside the Odeon in central SW19 – so you can get hands on with the refurbished clothing we are selling through our collaboration with One Tree. Please pop by for a chat and to find out more.

Are you a travel or sports business that would like to see end of season branded items refurbished and put to good use? Get in touch – we would love to help you normalise re-use for discarded winter sports wear. It’s good for sustainability and the environment, good for consumers, good for the industry and great for your corporate profile.

Check out the One Tree items for sale at WhoSki.com here.

“I spent £1k on kit – most will never get used”

How much does it cost to kit your kids out for an expedition? And what if that kit never gets used?

The 2023 World Scout Jamboree – oh dear! We feel so sorry for those Scouts who had worked so hard for so long to get to South Korea, only for a series of organisational and climactic mishaps to make it a trip to remember for all the wrong reasons.

Costly kit lists

Here at WhoSki.com we were also struck by the words of one parent, who told The Times, “You get a big kit list… I spent about £1,000 in Decathlon. Most of it will never get used.”

If you’ve ever signed up a child for a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, an adventure trip or a Scout or Guide camp, you’ll sympathise.

Kitting out your kids with the necessary equipment for every eventuality – rain, wind, heat, insects, snow – is essential. The official kit list is lengthy. The cost is high.

But much of that expedition gear, which ranges from waterproof jackets to mosquito nets, Camelbak hydration carriers to gaiters, walking trousers to rucksack liners, barely gets used. Let’s face it, some of it never comes out of the bag.

Unused kit: perfect for re-sale

A lot of equipment is used only briefly because your teenage kids grow out of it before their next adventure. Which makes it perfect for secondhand re-sale. And WhoSki.com is the perfect place to sell it on.

We have expanded our categories beyond ski to include a wider range of pre-loved outdoor clothing and kit.

So rather than stuffing that outdoor gear in the loft, why not sell it on via our secondhand marketplace? It’s your chance to recoup some of your initial outlay and help make someone else’s DofE expedition a bit more affordable and sustainable.

Image by Freepik

What happens to old wellies?

I’ve lost count of the number of welly boots my family has churned through over the years. Which set me wondering: what happens to old wellies once you don’t want or need them any more?

We’ve all owned a pair of wellies. My current Hunter wellies have been going strong for about 15 years – and my daughter has inherited their predecessors.

Meanwhile, a cheapo Decathlon pair are doing sterling service as my rowing wellies, and shorty Joules wellies keep my feet dry while gardening.

Wellies are hard to recycle

Even when your wellies are made from certified eco-sourced rubber, mixing rubber with other materials during manufacture unfortunately makes them difficult to recycle when discarded.

It’s even worse for old wellies made from materials like PVC. Recycling of synthetics is still in its early days; they take hundreds of years to decompose in landfill and emit toxins when incinerated.

So choose carefully when you buy. Purchase pre-loved if you can, and never put old wellies in the bin: waste dumps are among the worst places they can end up. If there’s any life in them – no leaks, intact tread – try selling them via WhoSki.com or donate to a worthy cause.

Are your old wellies fit for re-sale?

If you are selling on or donating your unwanted old wellies, check that they are in good condition without cracks or damage that might leak. Make sure the soles are still in good shape, with tread robust enough to prevent slipping in mud or on wet surfaces.

Check welly tread is fit for purpose

When taking pics of your wellies for listing on WhoSki.com, photograph these details. If they are patterned, make sure the image is clear with no background clutter, to help bring your listing to life.

Eco-rubber boots

Remember: rubber comes from plants. Choosing wellies with FSC (Forest Stewardship Certification) means you can be certain the rubber comes from a sustainable source.

Wellington boot manufacturers which use FSC-certified natural rubber include Hunter Boots (which, sadly, went into administration earlier this year) and Lakeland.

Welly recycling options

If your wellies are too clapped-out to sell on, then check out local recycling point options. Try the recycle now site.

The French brand Aigle is a spendy option – warning, expensive! – but their boots are among the most sustainable you can buy and are guaranteed to last. Find out more.

Buy well to avoid welly waste

Keeping old wellies in active usage as long as they are fit for purpose is always the ‘greenest’ option. Recycling takes energy, and incineration produces toxic pollutants.

To reduce your environmental impact, consider investing in high-quality wellies that are made from sustainable materials and designed to last for many years. For kids, make sure their wellies are kept in active usage for as long as possible before they need to be thrown away. Sell them on via WhoSki.com or swap with friends and family to avoid buying new where possible.

Get creative with your old wellies

Once your wellies are really no longer wearable, perhaps you could repurpose them? Cut them down to use as shortie wellies, or transform them into planters.

Some schools and community groups use old wellies to plant up herbs and flowers, creating a fun and colourful display. It’s a good way for the kids to learn a bit about gardening as well as the impact of their wellies on the environment.

Got wellies you want to sell on? Visit the footwear section of the WhoSki.com marketplace to list your old wellies. Remember, we donate to charity on every sale.

Celebrating our first full ski season

As the ski lifts close at the end of Europe’s winter sports season, at WhoSki.com we are celebrating our first full ski season of trading, with your help.

Helping stem the textiles glut and cutting the cost of skiing with our simple, safe, online marketplace for secondhand ski and snowboard clothing: what a year it has been!

Season highlights include:

  • A customer database that keeps on growing: thanks to all who have registered and continue to do so. It’s the best way to be among the first to know when new items go on sale. Register quickly and simply here.
  • A Best Business award for innovation (and a runners-up gong for sustainability).
  • Building partnerships with a network of businesses operating in the winter sports sector including Huski, Halsbury Ski, Club Europe, the Ski Club of GB and more.
  • Working alongside local, national and international players to promote circularity and the #SkiGreen message, like Sustainable Merton, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, SATI and Re-Action.
  • With your help, we have kept heaps of snow wear, from ski jackets to goggles, IN active usage and OUT of landfill.
  • We have enabled numerous WhoSki.com members to monetize their wardrobe while reducing their carbon footprint via the circular economy.
  • A stand at the NEC National Snow Show where we enjoyed meeting (and feeding – homemade biscuits, anyone?) so many potential customers. We look forward to seeing you at the next one.
  • Feedback from our many satisfied, supportive WhoSki.com users

It really feels like a distant memory since the evening Nicola suggested we set up the UK’s eBay just for ski clothes – now live and trading as WhoSki.com.

Pre-loved fashion then was a niche interest. The only way to reliably get your hands on a pair of affordable salopettes was via a friend or neighbour. And when your children grew out of their snowboots there was no real way to ensure they were passed on sustainably outside your immediate circle.

making sustainability simple

As one happy WhoSki.com customer puts it: “A very easy process to kit my children out to replace the items they had grown out of. Will certainly be using the site again.”

So, happy full first year to us – and watch out for exciting developments at the WhoSki.com marketplace during the year ahead.

Image by ArtPhoto_studio on Freepik

Mark Earth Day with year-round behaviour change

We agree with organisers, that bold action and everyday behaviour change are key to improving sustainability this Earth Day. Buying and selling secondhand are among the ways we can all make a difference year-round.

Global revenues for transactions in the circular economy sector – secondhand, rental and repaired goods – are predicted to more than double over the four-year period to 2026.

Great news, you might think: finally the message is getting through, that re-use beats recycle, and that pre-loved is the new “new”.

Sadly, it’s not that simple. While the UK plays a key role in trading secondhand and used goods worldwide, much of that trade is in the export of our unwanted apparel to the Global South and elsewhere. In 2018, the UK ranked as the world’s second biggest exporter of used clothing, with exports valued at approximately US$541.41 million.

Making waves in the outdoor sector

WhoSki.com, with our peer-to-peer marketplace for secondhand ski and snowboard clothing, is a minnow in the tide of textile waste flowing out of Europe. However, as the current European ski season draws to close, now is the perfect time to take stock of how our little marketplace is starting to make waves.

In our first full season, the WhoSki.com customer base has grown by a whopping 1,270%, we’ve won a Best Business award for innovation (and a runners-up gong for sustainability), we’ve built partnerships with a network of businesses operating in the winter sports sector, worked alongside local, national and international players to promote circularity, kept heaps of secondhand ski wear, from ski jackets to goggles, IN active usage and OUT of landfill and we have enabled numerous WhoSki.com members to monetize their wardrobe while reducing their carbon footprint via the circular economy.

Since its launch in 1972, Earth Day has sought to activate people to be more engaged and informed about protecting our planetary ecosystem. Awareness has grown and in latter years the deployment of solutions has undoubtedly accelerated.

Raising awareness

Our experience has been similar. A handful of years ago, awareness of climate change was minimal among consumers. Personal experience of unreliable weather conditions in European ski resorts in recent years has brought the reality of climate change to the front door of our chalets.

Enabling skiers to buy secondhand ski clothing and equipment where possible and pass on their unwanted textiles sustainably via the WhoSki.com marketplace is part of the behaviour change that can help convert consumers to embrace the circular economy across multiple sectors.

Investment in behaviour change is among the simple, sustainable steps we can and must take to support Planet Earth.

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

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.

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 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.

Schuss into spring 2022 with new-look WhoSki.com

Welcome to new-look WhoSki.com. We’ve had a marketplace makeover, making it quicker and easier to buy and sell pre-loved wintersports wear on our UK-based website, with transactions powered by Stripe for financial confidence and security.

What’s new?

  • upload technology SO SIMPLE that you can list your no-longer-needed clothing by mobile as you travel to and from the piste
  • reliable click-to-buy transactions powered by trusted provider Stripe
  • focused ski and snowboard community: no trawling through page after page of irrelevant content
  • #SkiGreen Directory to help you make eco-choices when you visit the slopes

PLUS we continue to donate a quarter of our commission to teen mental health charity stem4 on every sale.

Think green as you head for the mountains

Sustainability is the No1 reason why we set up WhoSki.com. Extending the lifetime of textiles is the most environmentally friendly way to keep clothing in circulation and out of landfill. It’s a step that we can all take, by passing on our good quality, secondhand clothes to other enthusiasts.

Experts calculate that extending the active life of clothing by just three months per item, leads to a 5-10% reduction in the carbon, water and waste footprints of your family’s no-longer-needed ski and snowboard outfits.

Find out more about sustainability in winter sports and the fast business on our Eco page here.

Meanwhile, around three-quarters of clothing donated to charity shops fails to find a home – especially specialist items like ski wear – and a mere 15% of our textile waste is recycled.

The good news is, every one of us can make a difference. So why not put sustainability on your to-do list this back-to-ski season? Selling through WhoSki.com instantly reduces the carbon footprint of your wintersports habit, helps you earn a bit of money and keeps down the cost of kitting out yourself and your family.

Sell simply and safely in our dedicated community

So whether you’ve fallen out of love with your wintersports wardrobe since you were last on the slopes, or had a clear-out and realised those ski and snowboard clothes no longer fit, the WhoSki.com shop is the place to sell them, simply and safely.

We look forward to welcoming you to our refreshed online marketplace – join us too on social media, @WeWhoSki on Twitter and Instagram.

Expert #SkiGreen tips from our webinar

We were delighted to assemble a super-knowledgeable panel of experts for our #SkiGreen webinar today, so we couldn’t let them get away without sharing their quick tips for improving your eco profile on the piste. Perfect timing for #WorldEnvironmentDay, and with one proviso: no one was allowed to promote their own business.

Our experts’ #SkiGreen tips:

1 Keep harmful microfibres out of the waste stream: use a Guppy bag when you wash your clothing.
– Rachael Westbrook, Founder of EcoSki clothing

2 Choose veggie or vegan food when you can, even while out on the mountain, to help make best use of the world’s resources.
– Iain Martin, Founder of Ski Flight Free and presenter of The Ski Podcast

3 Take the train to the slopes – it’s more fun, less hassle and massively reduces your carbon footprint.
– Jim Stewart, Founder and MD, BUTTA eco ski/board wax

4 Favour resorts that use renewable energy (there are plenty of them)
– Peter Speight, Team GB Olympic freestyle skier and account executive Futerra

5 Don’t wash ski clothes more than you have to – spot clean hot chocolate or vin chaud stains rather than putting the whole thing through the machine.
– Nicola Davenport, Co-founder, WhoSki.com

6 Provide environmental feedback to your ski resort, operator, supplier as it will encourage them to do the right things and address the things they are getting wrong.
– Daniel Elkan, Founder of Snowcarbon and sustainable travel journalist

Circular Economy Week, London 2020

The WhoSki.com #SkiGreen webinar, chaired by WhoSki.com Co-founder Sally Warren, formed part of this year’s ‘virtual’ CE Week London, with a a series of snappy presentations from our expert panellists followed by a Q&A session.

Topics covered included:

  • how to spot a ‘green’ ski resort
  • why we should all choose environmentally conscious wintersports clothing
  • how to organise your ski train trip to the mountains
  • why secondhand is no longer second rate when it comes to pre-loved
  • why PFCs are ‘the forever chemical’
  • how we can protect our mountains for the next generation

Many thanks to all who took part, Circular London for proving us with a slot at this prestigious event, and Sustainable Merton for supporting us with the advice and tech expertise that powered the #SkiGreen webinar.

Watch the video of our #SkiGreen webinar: 

https://youtu.be/ZfiL6yiNme4

Read the presentations:

See also: 3 ways to #SkiGreen this and every season

How to ski greener in 2020/21

Much of the ski industry has been slow to deliver greener options for skiers and snowboarders, but there are resorts, organisations and businesses which are starting to make a mark and lead the way for change.

Co-founders of Wimbledon-based WhoSki.com Sally Warren and Nicola Davenport were invited by Sustainable Merton to discuss the circular economy, how the wintersports clothing we purchase impacts on the environment, some of the moves forward in the industry, and how a few changes can make your ski habits greener.

The eye-watering facts:

  • the PFC chemicals in outdoor clothing are harmful to wildlife
  • it can take up to 200 years for the polyester used in ski wear to break down
  • 23% of the clothes in the average Londoner’s wardrobe are NEVER worn
  • 70% of snow cover globally could disappear by the year 2100

Top tips for a greener ski habit, from the WhoSki webinar:

  • take the train or drive to the slopes rather than fly
  • take your own water bottle
  • choose a green resort (some are wind- and solar-powered)
  • choose a car-free resort (eg Avoriaz, Les Arcs 1950)
  • use a sustainable travel agent and offset your trip
  • buy good as new secondhand ski clothing – and sell it on when you no longer need it
  • insist on eco-friendly ski and snowboard wax (toxic hydrocarbon waxes leach chemicals into the snow which can end up in the water table)
  • choose a clothing range that uses recycled/eco-friendly materials when buying new (eg Planks, Picture)  – and check whether it can be recycled

Find out more:

To see the WhoSki webinar presentation in full CLICK HERE 
To see a PDF of our presentation CLICK HERE 

If you want to get in contact with us, please email us at info@whoski.com

Happy green skiing!
Sally and Nicola, Co-founders, WhoSki.com.