*According to REACH, the European chemical legislature (Regulation (EU) No 1907/2006), producers, importers or retailers of merchandise containing 0.1% or more of certain substances are obligated to inform the consumer, if requested. This disclosure obligation applies to substances specified on the EU candidate list. These substances are deemed especially harmful in terms of health and the environment.
PFC
Since the beginning of 2017, the clothes that we produce ourselves have been entirely PFC-free. Our goal is to stop using all PFC- based waterproofing in our products including shoes, backpacks and tents. There are alternative PFC- free waterproofing alternatives available today. The disadvantage of these, however, is that they can cause the taping and the coating on the back of the fabric to loosen after washing, which means that they do not comply with our quality requirements. The work to find a PFC-free solution where the coating stays in place after washing is ongoing and positive results began to be seen in fall 2014. In 2015, 80% of our coated material was PFC-free. During 2016, we worked to phase out PFCs from all the clothes in our own production, which means that 2017 is the year in which we have become completely PFC-free.
In those instances where PFC-free alternatives do not comply with our quality requirements for water-repellent material in shoes, backpacks and tents, we will continue to approve the use of the perfluorinated substance PFOA but will carefully follow Norway’s new legislation from 2014, which imposes more stringent requirements on the processing of these substances in the production process. This is included in our chemical guidelines, which (unlike European REACH legislation) prohibits exceeding 1 microgram/m2 PFOA content in any material. All materials are also free from perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS).
Our PFC-free products have hangtags containing information about this, as well as a Supporting Earth label with the text “PFC free”.
