Our Favourite Sustainable Backpack Companies | Junyuan Bags | Professional Bag Manufacturer - Golf Bag,Sports Bag,Outdoor Bag Manufacturer

Our favourite companies that are creating sustainable backpacks and how they do it.

The search for the ultimate backpack is more than just about backpacks. It’s about finding the backpack that is responsible and part of a sustainable life cycle.

We came across some fantastic backpacks and brands in our search and we love it when we discover brands that focus on accountability for a sustainable future.

Follow our journey towards living a sustainable life

These brands take ownership of the full life of their products, they look at recycling, lifecycle repair as well as utilising recycled materials. They approach their products from a holistic perspective and address each stage of the product’s lifecycle.

Fundamentally, these companies promote the use of their products for as long as possible. They offer repair services to fix broken or damaged products and provide systems that allow you to donate your old backpacks for others to use when you’re done.

The companies have recycling programs and use recycled materials on new products. They recognise the impact consumerism has on the environment and are making solid efforts to rectify the issue.

Each company is taking a slightly different approach and this is our ongoing list (In no particular order) of the companies doing their best.

Clean Generation

Clean Generation are only new, but they’re bold new 100% biodegradable bags are the real deal.

We love what they’re doing!

It’s going all in and creating a product that has a complete afterlife plan. There are a lot of companies that do a good job on sustainability, but they only go so far.

Clean Generation has taken the full leap and designed their bags to made form 100% biodegradbale materials. Each element has been carefully designed to ensure that after life the bags can be placed in your home compost system… which is very cool.

The bags are clean, stylish and come with a fantastic story to tell your friends.

Thier philosophy is to design out waste and their other product the zipper free surfboard cover follows this same philosophy. Surfboard covers spend their whole life at the beach, and this causes the zippers seize up from the salt air…so they deigned out the zipper! and their covers now last 2-3 times longer than other on the market!

Pretty cool and thats why we love them!

Patagonia

Patagonia is an American clothing company that has become a pioneer in the development of sustainable

practices for the textile industry. The business takes a full lifecycle approach to their products and provides systems that enable their users with the ability to use their products for a long time; then move them on when finished to be reused or recycled.

They begin the cycle by using a large number of recycled materials in their products. You can find recycled nylon, polyester, wool and down throughout the Patagonia range. When it comes to backpacks the use of recycled polyester is the primarily recycled material.

The best thing is, this is not new to Patagonia as they have been using recycled polyester made from soda bottles in their products from as early as 1993, and they pride themselves on being “the first outdoor clothing manufacturer to transform trash into fleece”

Patagonia loves to reuse products, so much so that they have provided a service that allows you to drop off your used items at a store or post your used Patagonia products back to them for recycling and reuse.

In 2017 they recently launched their Worn Wear program, which aims to resell and reuse Patagonia clothing. This program aims to extend the life of products to cut down on consumption.

Patagonia’s focus is clearly to extend the life of their products and keep them in circulation for as long as possible. They want their users to get full use of their products and have established systems that enable you to repair and re-use your product or recycle it to be made into new products.

Timbuk2

Timbuk2’s is an American clothing company based in San Francisco. Their approach to sustainability starts with the first of their values, they “Give a Damn. About their people, products, community and the environment.” This approach enables them to look at all aspects of their products and by offering full lifetime warranty they practice what they preach.

Like Patagonia, they promote extending the life of their products and run a lifecycle repair system that provides spare parts for the fix and maintenance of their backpacks. They also offer support, so If the repair is too great for you to fix yourself they are able to fix your backpack at their repairs centre in San Francisco.

Recycling is a major part of addressing the lifecycle of products and Timbuk2 tackle this in two ways.

Firstly, they look to re-use your backpack and encourage you to send it back and donate your unwanted backpack when you’re finished with it. In return, to promote this sustainable approach they offer a juicy 30% discount on your next purchase.

When bags are too far gone and beyond repair or cleaning, they then look to recycle the backpack. Timbuk2 have partnered with a number of organisations to make this happen, which you can learn more about it here. https://www.timbuk2.com/pages/timbuk2-lifecycle

Kathmandu

Kathmandu is an outdoor performance apparel brand based out of New Zealand.

They take a slightly different approach and focus on 2 core aspects of sustainability, the use of responsible materials in their products, and the removal of waste in the production and distribution side of their business.

They are tackling sustainability from a whole company perspective and not just at a product level. They are focused on setting quality goals, for reducing waste at all points in a product’s life cycle, with the ultimate goal of achieving zero landfill waste.

Currently, the company is achieving an outstanding 72.8% of recycled materials used across their stores and in production.

When it comes to their products, Kathmandu has an ever-refining system that is used to prioritise the type of responsible materials used for their products.

They have identified the impact each of their materials has on the environment and graded them in terms of priority to be used in the design.

To date here is their current priority for materials in their products