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‘Dear Competitors’: One Brand’s Call to Unite the Outdoor and Sports Apparel Industry

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Think what would happen if GORE-TEX, The North Face, Swix, Norrona, and countless other brands all put their heads together.

“Dear competitors in the sports clothing industry,” Kari Traa began. “Why don’t we steal each other’s secrets?” Curious as to where this is going? So were we.

From reusing its own wool waste to learning how to create compostable packaging, Kari Traa is putting in lots of effort to become more sustainable as an outdoor brand. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

As Traa argues, achieving the ultimate level of sustainability in the greater industry isn’t going to happen unless brands band together — share their processes, their innovations, their secrets. Learn how to reuse materials, incorporate each other’s technologies.

Cut to a shot of Traa cutting up fabrics from retired apparel — sewing six or seven different brands together into one reimagined base layer.

“To be honest, we find the road to sustainability quite bumpy. We have so many questions and not enough answers,” Kari Traa teased in the film description.

“If we are to become more sustainable, we need to gain proper know-how and learn from the others in the industry. Because surely, when it comes to sustainability, we should be less like competitors and more like partners.”

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