Ethical Down Sourcing - Part 3

Great job researching the topic - its great to see a company engaging with issues that are far easier to ignore…

As you mentioned, Tundra produce sleeping bags that contain naturally moulted and collected down. Though the price tag is necessarily higher, I consider this by far the best option, and the only way of meaningfully controlling the welfare problem.

Sadly, this method of down harvest is incredibly inefficient to the more dubious alternatives discussed in your articles, and so uncompetitive in the marketplace. If you could find a way though, that really would be great.People are remarkably good at forgetting things that make them uncomfortable - this includes ethics when it really bites at the wallet! I believe this is the problem so perhaps education and marketing is the solution - a more expensive range of down clothing, with the user constantly reminded of the realities of the down industry.

If people knew what they were paying for, I’m sure they would hand over the cash for more expensive down garments.

Many thanks,

It’s great that this issue has been raised by Alpkit as one of the leading brands in the UK lightweight camping/climbing market. It’s an issue that I care a lot about, and having considered it, felt a move to synthetic alternatives was the right choice, despite the damage done to the environment through synthetic insulation production.

I would be most interested to know where Alpkit have got to since 2009 with their investigations. It seems that there has been little new information since then.

All the best,

Tom.

The farms that i have seen, seem to be similar to that a free range chicken. Outside space, access to water. I’m sure diet and other aspects welfare could be improved.

Cheers

Nick

Agree that hurting live animals, as during live plucking, is to be avoided. But living conditions prior to killing don’t tend to be so great either, do they? And then they still have to get killed. Light weight synthetic, please!

Just to say that if you did not seem to be taking this issue seriously I wouldn’t be buying a PD600 from you. So cheers, because I really want it.

We had a few emails our way. Apparently on the TV4.se they have a list on their page where they state which
supplieres in china who do live plucking:

Dunföretag i Kina som säljer dun från levande fåglar
Shandong Jining Zhuhe feather down factory
Anhui wanxi down factory
Anxin Jianxiang feather Down factory
Anxin Baoding xue rui sha feather down
Hebei Anxin Dazhuang
Yiqi Down filled products company
Liu Qiao Yu Rong
Huida
Multiglory Group
Xueniao
jinquan-outdoor
Best feathers
Anhui Hongren Group
Raoping Hele Down Product Factory
Wanxibaie
Shaoxing City Maolong Wuzhong Down Products

And those who don’t:
Dunföretag i Kina som säger att de inte säljer dun från levande fåglar

Hebei Anxin Hualian Yu Rong
Hebei Xingsheng Feather Down Ltd
Anxin Dazhangzhuang
Xuechi

Taken from:
http://www.tv4.se/1.830394/2009/01/29/lista_foretag_som_saljer_dun_fran_levande_faglar

As to be expected this is not a definitive list, i can think of at least 4 or 5 down suppliers that many companies in the outdoor industry use that are not listed here.

Cheers

Nick

Eco brand or not (I see no shame in beeing that all though might be a bit difficult with clothes and so)... I still like the fact you like me and I think must outdoor people take care in our planet - otherwise I myself would be a hypocrite if I could go out and enjoy the nature as I do and at the same time look away not caring if eg. I saw a ship dumping oil in the sea.. This dosen’t go hand in hand…

All though nothing seems perfect still I must say I absolutely love your strive to go in the direction of both affordable quality products without or at least striving not to sacrificing animal welfare…. Keep up the good work - which I honestly think you’re doing - and I thank you for this!

Well we have had a few days to digest all this.
Firstly the reports start coming out of Scandinavia about the programme at the beginning of the month. We are on a few newsletters for ethical sourcing and the like, so we normally have a good idea on what’s going on. Then we start getting the reports from down associations defending their position. At this point we didnt really think much of it. We get asked alot about ethical stuff (not that we are some great eco brand, but we do give a honest view on stuff) so we just thought the report was just a bit media hype. Then we get an email from the UK press saying that they want to run a story, and whats our slant on it. So i send them what we have. We even get an email from Dr Mike Appleby who helped us originally saying that his former quote needed a bit of updating with the new information that was coming out of Sweden.

We are going to do a little more digging but i do feel we are missing a bit of proof and detail, and there is going to be an awful lot of information “out there” that has no factual base.

At the moment It feels like were in Teacup and there’s someone with spoon waiting to give us a stir.

Cheers

Nick