The best for your product: performance × responsibility
Our VAUDE Material Policy expresses our voluntary commitment to using only those technologies and materials that are uncontroversial. Better for you, better for the planet!
Performance meets Ecology
Your VAUDE products should offer reliable protection from the weather – including the pouring rain, baking sun, howling winds or freezing cold. They should help you to enjoy everything our wonderful planet has got to offer, to achieve your best and serve you for years on your outdoor adventures.
We carefully select our materials so that you get the best product for your activity. VAUDE materials combine top quality with technical performance and ecological responsibility.
Voluntary, consistent, strict
The sustainability of your VAUDE product begins with our product managers’ first product ideas. They are the ones who decide what materials and technologies to use.
VAUDE has made a commitment to using the best (most environmentally friendly) technologies, to eliminating the use of controversial technologies and materials, and to ensuring maximum traceability of all materials to their origin.
In the VAUDE Material Policy, we regulate which materials are allowed and which conditions need to be met during the production of raw materials, cultivation and processing.
Consistently strict also means that we ensure the greatest possible transparency for natural materials that could be critical from an environmental or animal welfare point of view. This means that we check very carefully where the wool, down and cotton come from, whether they meet the requirements defined in our Material Policy and are certified according to the standards we require. For example, we only use down that is certified by the Responsible Down Standard. You can find more info here
Precautionary Principle: no unexpected surprises
While other outdoor brands rely on nanotechnology for example, or continue to rely on fluorine-containing waterproofing, we at VAUDE work in accordance with the precautionary principle: Until a technology is scientifically classified as harmless, we keep our hands off it.
In this process we include the opinions of experts from within and outside our industry such as the Federal Environment Agency, universities, and civil society organizations like the WWF Germany.
In our opinion, the industry has often brought alleged innovations to the market without adequately assessing the risks in advance. When it turns out that they are harmful to health or the environment, the damage has already been done. Even after many years, unfortunately, a current example that continues: fluorocarbon technology for water-repellent materials. Why are they harmful and why did VAUDE stop using them? Find out more here.
This balancing act is a challenge for our product developers; more sustainable materials frequently cost more than their conventional counterparts, are more difficult to obtain, they require different processing or are used differently.
From A for “air quality” to Z for “zero emissions”, we take the environmental impact of materials into consideration.
The VAUDE Material Policy contains analyses and specifications on the most important materials used in VAUDE products, especially on "critical" aspects such as the production of renewable and fossil plastics, recyclability, animal welfare, impact on climate, water, land use change / deforestation, biodiversity, as well as genetic engineering and nanotechnology.
We based our ratings of materials on the Planetary Impact Boundaries model (read more here), as well as the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (read more here).
In order to consider the recyclability of our materials, we have defined evaluation criteria for practical recyclability and biodegradability based on all the data available to us.
Goal: from Climate-neutral to Net Zero
Fossil raw materials are limited, and their extraction and production cause great environmental damage. As a society, we must manage to transitionto a circular economy within planetary impact limits. VAUDE is already working diligently on this:
By 2024, 90 % of all VAUDE products will have a recycled or renewable material content of more than 50 %.
We are already on the final stretch and have set ambitious new goals for 2030.
Our focus is expanding beyond recycled and biobased materials to include "renewable" resources.
Renewable materials are derived from sources that naturally replenish themselves or are used in a way that does not deplete the source.
This approach encompasses biobased materials and also embraces emerging technologies like CO2 capture and utilization.
We also recognize the mass balance approach, as it verifiably uses renewable sources and permits the shared use of facilities with petroleum-based raw materials.
Read more about the Circular Economy at VAUDE here.
You can find out how the use of recycled and renewable materials affects our climate footprint here.
VAUDE material suppliers by number and proportion per country
Fabric and component suppliers are shown separately. Fabric suppliers are represented by a roll of fabric, component suppliers by a button that symbolizes all components such as buttons, zippers, straps and back panels.
We help our suppliers to work more environmentally friendly: With the Vendor Management und den VAUDE Vendor Management and the VAUDE Vendor Club. Find out more here.
People and the planet go hand in hand. As a Fair Wear Foundation member with leader status, we ensure fair working conditions. More about it here.
Here you can see the materials that VAUDE uses:
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This diagram contains the most relevant materials VAUDE used to manufacture VAUDE products in the respective year (measured via PLM system, nominated fabrics, selected components/ trims by weight, without footwear). In 2023, the shown materials account for 99 %, of the total material consumption.
For comparison: Material consumption 2022 and 2021
Materialis 2022
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Material consumption VAUDE 2022 (recorded: 99 % of total material consumption)
Materials 2021
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Material consumption VAUDE 2021 (recorded: 98 % of total material consumption)
Your decisions count!
With your purchasing decisions, you can help to make your product more environmentally friendly:
Water repellency without fluorochemicals: Choose a more environmentally friendly product - without compromising functionality! How does it work? Read more here.
If it’s got to be cotton, make it organic! This is much less damaging to the environment than conventional cotton, as less chemicals and less water are needed to grow it. Read more here: Organic cotton is better for people and the planet.
Recycled materials reduce the use of raw materials, energy consumption and CO2, but not functionality! More at New fabrics from used fishing nets.
Systematic is better: With the help of the bluesign® system, VAUDE reduces its use of raw materials, energy, water, wastewater, waste materials and chemicals in the processing of polyester and polyamide.
A clean supply chain and a clean conscience
Transparency throughout the supply chain is important, but it is often non-existent in textile production. VAUDE has been publishing the origin of all materials for many years. And, of course, all countries of production – read more here
