Eco Essentials Timeline

Tretorn was founded 1891 in Helsingborg, Sweden. Since the beginning, it has been an innovation-driven company, which creates contemporary, & high-quality functional products in a responsible manner. In 2016 we celebrated 125 years in business, this made us rethink the companies basic philosophy and what kind of products we want to make for the next 125 years. We have a long heritage of CSR and responsible manufacturing and as we face huge climate challenges we decided it was time to take even greater responsibility. To use our planets limited resources in a more innovative way we decided to start the Eco Essentials Initiative.

The Eco Essentials Initiative is a platform for us to challenge ourselves to make even more responsible business practices. It started in 2016 with the goal of transforming 50% of our outerwear into Eco Essential products by 2020. But already by 2018, 80% of the outerwear in our FW18 Collection could be labelled Eco Essential. That means it’s either recycled, made to be recyclable, and created from discarded fishing nets or other ocean waste. It should also be degradable and not use harmful chemicals or heavy metals in the form of PVC, fluorocarbons or phthalates.

Our approach is that in order to make a real difference and contribute to more sustainable development, we must start producing everyday products with a circular process in mind and also look at how to bring it up to scale. By using the company’s 1891 heritage and transforming the innovation process to renewable resources we have already managed to launch projects: The Leftover Project, The Ghost Net Project, The Bio Degradable Project and Now the Ocean Shell fabric and Eco Essentials sneakers.

2016 – THE LEFTOVER PROJECT

In 2016 we launched the first Eco Essentials project – The Leftover Project.

The Leftover Project was sprung from our mutual love of the outdoors and the shared passion for responsible manufacturing and retailing. It was based on circular design and innovation inspired by natural ecosystems, where nothing goes to waste. We bought leftover fabrics from manufacturers and used it to create extremely limited edition collections, all depending on what was left behind in the factory.

2017 – THE GHOST NET PROJECT

The second Eco Essentials project was launched, by the name of Ghost Net Collection. It was a limited co-lab collection made out of recycled fishing nets, collected to prevent ghost nets in our oceans.

Fishing nets are considered to be one of the biggest environmental threats in our oceans. 650.000 tons of fishing nets are left as debris on the bottoms of our oceans. Every two years, the fishing fleet changes their fishing nets, and the old nets get dumped in the sea. These nets drift with the wind and currents for years as ghost nets and when they get caught on a reef they can destroy entire ecosystems. Ghost nets are among the greatest killers in our oceans.

But fishing nets also happens to be made of some of the best nylon materials in the world. Tretorn Ghost Net collection or the Rain Jacket From The Sea is a rain jacket made out of recycled fishing nets, collected to prevent Ghost Nets in our oceans and at the same time deliver a premium product of the best quality to the conscious costumers.

2018 – THE BIO PLANT JACKET

Our next invention within the Eco Essentials initiative was the Bio Plant Jacket, a 100 % degradable rain jacket. The project sprung from the idea of creating a rain jacket that resembled nature’s own circular eco system. Instead of using a material derived from fossil fuel we used PLA (Polylactide) from Tapioca and sugar cane.

During the design process we looked at both the military and medicine industries for inspiration, both are at the forefront when it comes to innovation and developing sustainable materials. The military have been using degradable PLA (Polylactide) for years in war zones to be able to leave material behind which then disappears without a trace. In medicine degradable PU (Polyuretan) is often used as a natural degradable material. The result of combining these two techniques created our degradable rain jacket.

The jacket is also equipped with a unique degradable zipper, made from the only degradable polyamide yarn in the world, Amni ® Soul Eco Material. The rest of the jacket is made in PLA – Polylactide – a fabric that is produced from carbon dioxide. By using a special technology, carbon dioxide can be extracted from plants like corn, sugar cane and tapioca. To make the jacket waterproof it’s coated with a degradable PU.

2018 – OCEAN-SHELL®

The unique fabric, Tretorn OCEAN-SHELL®, was launched in 2018 as our next invention within the Eco Essentials initiative. The OCEAN-SHELL® is a three layer fabric made from recycled PET-bottles collected from the ocean outside of Taiwan. The jacket is equipped with a hydrophilic membrane, which is also made from recycled PET from the ocean. This makes the fabric a full circle renewable source adapted to be recycled again.

The OCEAN-SHELL® fabric can at the moment be found in the jackets Arch Jacket and Sphere Jacket. This is a fabric created to enable us to continue to be innovative in the future so you can count on finding it in Tretorn’s forthcoming collections and used in many new creative ways.

2019 – ECO ESSENTIALS SNEAKERS

Tretorn brings back key styles from our sneaker archive, dipping into our 120 years of heritage as a preppy sport sneaker manufacturer. The new sneakers have an updated modern design and are a also part of the Eco Essentials Initiative.

The Eco Essentials element to the sneakers enables us to focus on bringing back locally sourced natural rubber as the main compound for the outsoles. We also use recycled rubber to create the inner-liner, and Eco Tannery Tan-Tec for Eco Suede and Eco leather: all traceable to farm, cow or sheep, all made with reduced water usage and strict regulations on the colourings used.