Reframe, Engage, Create Change

The annual Arc’teryx Alpine Academy event in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is attended by hundreds every year. With the effects of climate change on the glaciers, mountains and wild spaces that facilitate these activities and events rapidly and dramatically accelerating in recent years, brands and events organisers have a responsibility, now more than ever, to facilitate change.

BASE writer Hannah Mitchell went along to the event in June this year, taking part in clinics and joining in with the ReBIRD experience in the Alpine Village. Through the ReBIRD program, Arc’teryx aims to educate consumers and event participants, engaging them with more environmentally-friendly practises when it comes to outdoor kit, reframing sustainability to mean more than just a word on a label. Here she discusses how the brand are transitioning towards circularity in production and retail through engagement, transparency and awareness.

My cynicism regarding words like ‘up-cycling’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ when used in a commercial or retail context is widely known among my friends. Not forgetting of course, that catch-all, feel-good prefix, ‘eco’, which is the subject of much of my disdain and a pet cause for eye-rolling. Basically, I’m really fun at parties.

Joking aside (I am actually quite good fun), whilst I do have a healthy wariness of environmental promises that seem too good to be true, I’m a huge cheerleader for the imperfect, the incremental, and for those businesses and brands who hold their hands up and say ‘look, we’re not perfect, but we’re trying to do better’. Let’s be honest, humankind didn’t warm the world up overnight, so we’re not going to solve our climate crisis all that rapidly either. That isn’t to say that we should take our foot off the (renewable energy fuelled) pedal either – the climate crisis is exactly that, a crisis, and we can’t trivialise it.

Back to those words that make me grimace, ‘recyclable’ or ‘recycled’ can get in the bin too. We sort-of know that our recycling systems are broken to a degree, many recyclable materials have been rendered worthless by humankind’s relentless consumption over time. Yet still, when something is branded with that little green arrow sign that suggests some good will come of it eventually, we buy, and we feel vindicated in doing so. It’s making things worse. In relation to outdoor brands, there has been a really evident drive towards producing more sustainable textile options, manufacturing processes, repurposing offcuts previously destined for landfill, and towards garment repair schemes and end-of-life solutions. I do have to ask though, are these ranges, schemes and buzzy, feel-good campaigns just another clever branch of faux-environmentalism, cleverly capitalising on the consciences of well-meaning outdoorspeople who want quality kit for their activity of choice, but genuinely want to lessen their impact too?

Over the long weekend, queues for workshops and sessions at the stand snaked across the square. The ReCARE experience, in partnership with Gore-TEX, offered guidance on how to maintain outdoor gear in order to prolong its lifespan, with advice on washing and waterproofing. A repairs station offered the opportunity for people to drop off their Gore-TEX gear (of any brand) to be repaired for free by experts.

Being in the industry, I’ve seen a few of these pop-up repair shops hosted by various brands at outdoor events recently, and believe them to be commercially, pretty clever, but also an applaudable initiative. Many brands now offer repair schemes, but all too often they include brand-specific caveats, postal charges and fees for repair that in today’s financial climate will quite likely drive consumers to simply replace their damaged garment with a cheaper option – even if they’d really rather do the more planet-friendly thing. It’s sort-of like telling people that eating a healthy diet is better for them, but then pricing them out of the fruit and veg section so that they are forced to buy a processed ready meal. Free, in-person experiences like ReCARE go a long way to engaging consumers with the repair process too, and when we’re engaged, we’re far more likely to absorb the meaning behind the act. It’s not just about patching up jackets and fixing zips, but reducing the 92 million tons of textile waste that ends up in landfill worldwide every year.

Undoubtedly the most popular features of the experience were the ReCUT workshops that took place daily. Led by expert apparel and equipment designers from Arc’teryx, participants were invited to delve into a pile of factory offcuts, end-of-life garments and prototype textile swatches which they would then craft – with the help of the pros – into a bespoke bag, pouch or pencil case. Naturally, an activity like this is going to attract attention, and believe me when I say that I dove into the pile of scraps like an overexcited child! Crafting something out of cut-up waterproofs destined for landfill while chatting to infinitely cooler people than me about designing gear is pretty fun, and again serves that all-important purpose of engaging people with the real reason for doing so. It opens up a dialogue and spotlights a problem that folk might otherwise not know existed. Oh, and I walked away with a very cool bag to boot.