Endura Has Planted 2 Million Trees

If we want to meet the climate goals of COP26, we all need to do our part. At the start of 2020, Endura launched the Million Trees project and have shared their aims to become net carbon negative by 2024 by making changes to the way that they operate across the business whilst committing to planting trees at scale in order to lock up the CO2 that their activities produce. Carbon offsetting, as it’s known, is the fastest, most cost-effective and powerful way for an organization like Endura to begin to make an impact.

Planting at Home and Abroad

Endura is pleased to reveal that the One Million Trees initiative is still ahead of target and their planting partners in Africa have now planted more than two million trees in an area of degraded mangrove forest in Maputo Bay, Mozambique. This project is the key element to Endura’s commitment to plant one million trees for the next ten years as they’re able to plant large numbers of trees whilst also benefiting local communities and providing stable employment in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Closer to home, Endura has now planted 85,000 trees in Scotland, creating new woodland near Drymen in Stirlingshire on poor quality pastureland with minimal agricultural value. With the help of sustainable forestry experts, they have selected a mix of native species, such as birch, that are suited to the ground condition and climate of the site. The new woodland will be carefully managed to boost biodiversity and is protected against commercial forestry.

By planting trees and aggressively reducing their CO2 emissions, Endura will first net out their current footprint, before becoming CO2 negative in 2024. By committing to a long-term strategy, the cumulative effects of their initiatives will see Endura’s historic CO2 emissions being locked away by 2027.

“Whilst we’re obviously pleased that our One Million Trees project has exceeded our expectations and has now passed the two million mark ahead of schedule, it’s clear that we’re now at a critical point in our collective response to the climate crisis,” said Pamela Barclay, Endura’s Brand Director and co-founder. “Governments need to take bold steps, organizations need to act without being directed and we, as individuals, need to make changes too. If this doesn’t happen and happen quickly then the future looks increasingly grim for the planet and its inhabitants. We, as a company, will continue to make changes across our operations in order to reduce both our CO2 and overall environmental footprint.”

Endura is very aware that no single initiative will remove all of their impacts – that’s something they could only achieve by stopping what they’re doing. However, by tackling their environmental liabilities on a number of fronts they can shrink their footprint.

Endura exists to make cycling apparel and accessories. Whilst they engineer their products to last, garment manufacturing at scale can be damaging to both the environment and the people that make it in a number of ways. The chemicals used in the dying of fabrics and some of the materials and fabric treatments can be especially nasty. Endura has been PFC-free since 2018 and don’t use PTFE in their waterproofs – a chemical that’s often used in waterproof membranes.

A number of the brand’s products now carry the MADEKIND label that certifies it as having been made in a way that eliminates harmful substances from the supply chain; ensuring that products are safe for workers, the environment, and you, the riders.

Renewable Energy

Endura’s 5,000 square meter facility uses both electricity and natural gas to power and heat its offices, factory, and warehouse spaces and their calculations showed that the biggest reductions in emissions would come mainly from switching to renewable sources of electricity generation and they have now switched their providers to make that happen.

Polybag Recycling

Polybags as packaging – their factories deliver a lot of Endura’s apparel in individual plastic bags to protect the garments when in transit to stores, ensuring that they’re not damaged if the outer box is damaged on its way there. To an extent this helps to reduce some waste as it’s not unknown for items to be rendered unsellable as it moves from factory to warehouse to store. However, Endura knows that this isn’t popular with many people and so they’ve taken steps to reduce waste. To help prevent these bags being sent to landfills, Endura encourages their partner bike shops to return LDPE bags for the brand to chemically recycle (and they accept non-Endura bags as part of this process too). They’ve investigated the overall impact of this and they’ve confirmed that the CO2 emissions involved in returning the bags to their distribution centers in the UK and Europe and then reprocessing them to form new LDPE bags are dramatically lower than creating new bags from raw petrochemicals.

99% of Endura’s consumer store packaging is recyclable – they’ve been removing all laminate and gloss finishes from their packaging and tags to ensure that they are more easily recyclable since 2015 and are now actively developing alternative solutions to the bags used to send products out to stores and the hangers used to display them when they get there.

98% of point of sale packaging can be recycled – Endura uses easily recycled products like cardboard and steel to create the in-store fixtures used to display their products and is working to further reduce the percentage of non-recyclables.

Highlights

• Endura have planted over 2 million trees as pledged 2 years ago
• Endura will be Carbon Negative by 2024
• Endura planted 85K trees near Glasgow
• Endura HQ in Scotland runs on renewable energy
• 70% or Endura’s garments will have an eco story next year
• Endura’s MADEKIND products are manufactured in an environmentally controlled way
• All of Endura’s MTB jerseys and over a third of the brand’s road jerseys have been developed going forward with recycled yarns.
• Endura have been PFC – Free (so no harmful durable water repellent finishes) since 2018
• Endura encourage their partner bike shops to return poly bags for Endura to recycle even from competing brands
• 99% of Endura’s consumer store packaging is recyclable
• Endura offers a biodegradable garment reproofer and cleaner