February 15, 2019 ISPO Awards Sustainability

A snowy fair concluded earlier this month at ISPO Munich, where sustainability was once again a winner at the annual ISPO Awards. Here’s a few highlights.

Product of the Year: Grüezi Bag

By now we’ve come to trust the performance of sustainable materials for apparel, but how about our sleeping bags?

Going all in, Gruezi Bag’s “Biopod Downwool Nature” are made of 100 percent pure natural materials – from the packaging to the buttons – winning it this year’s ISPO’s Product of the Year Award in the Outdoor segment. If the words “fully natural” aren’t enough to make one sleep easy, it’s also really warm thanks to a combination of down and wool filling.

While grateful for the award, Gruezi says there’s still work to be done on now making the sleeping bag 100 percent compostable.

ISPO Gold Award: Cortazu

To get there, Cortazu has taken a somewhat unique path from the start: initially crowd-funded, Cortazu also implements a direct-to-consumer model which allows them to sell directly to customers and thereby avoid retailer markups.

Cortazu was among the Gold Award winners in the field of outdoor apparel for its Recycled Nylon 3-layer jacket. Just two years young, this Amsterdam-based start-up’s vision is to get people activated outdoors while improving the world around us.

“Winning the ISPO Gold Award,” co-founders Wiebe Poelmann and Wouter de Roy van Zuidewijnwrite in response to the award, “confirms our belief that you can make the highest quality outerwear in a way that is good for the environment, without breaking the bank.”

ISPO and Scandinavian Outdoor Award winner: ECCO

This year, the footwear brand ECCO leaves ISPO Munich with not just one – but two – prestigious awards.

Having just received the ISPO Award in the Outdoor category for Hiking and Trekking footwear for their ECCO SOFT 7 TRED W, ECCO was then awarded the Scandinavian Outdoor Award for their innovative, water-efficient tanning process: DriTan™ by ECCO Leather. This process totally removes 20 liters of water per hide in the tanning process, thereby significantly reducing water consumption and contaminated wastewater.

Header photo: Stéphane Robin/GreenroomVoice