Rabot Light Down Vest Women

All our products marked with the PFAS-free logo use a water repellent treatment that is free of PFAS substances.

PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is a group of more than 10.000 substances also known as fluorocarbons. They build up in nature as they do not degrade. In greater concentrations, they are proven to pose a hazard to both human health and the environment.

PFAS has been common to use for the so-called “Durable Water Repellent” finish (DWR): It means that water bounces off the surface rather than being absorbed by the fabric and making it wet. Using PFAS has been an effective treatment to achieve a durable water repellency for waterproof fabrics, but also other applications like ski waxes or food packaging.

Since these chemicals have shown to be harmful for both people and the environment, Bergans is working to phase out all fabrics containing PFAS finish and replace with more environmentally friendly, PFAS-free treatments. All the membranes we use are already free for PFAS. You can read more on PFAS and how we work to eliminate these.

A significant part of the challenge of using alternatives to PFAS lies in the lower durability of these water repellent solutions. That means that using a waterproof garment with a PFAS-free finishing requires you to re-impregnate these more often than before, to achieve a good water-repellent functionality also over time and after many washes. Anyhow, please always consider where and when it’s necessary to reduce environmental impact.

More info on how to wash and reimpregnate.

Our aim is to steadily increase the use of recycled materials in all our products and we continuously work to utilize more and more new fabrics containing recycled raw materials. We currently use different types of recycled polyamide fabrics in products such as down garments as well as shell garments.

Polyamide, sometimes also referred to as Nylon, normally uses fossil resources for its production. By re-using existing material streams we can save fossil resources and reduce the energy demand and therefore climate emissions, as well as water used for production.

We know from studies we have conducted on our products together with an independent environmental consultancy that the use of recycled materials can significantly lower the environmental and climate impact of products compared to using new materials.

One example is a recycled polyamide fabric we use for shell garments, where CO2 emissions can be reduced by 76 %, while the amount of waste water is reduced by 84 % -compared to the production of new virgin polyamide. This can simply be done by re-using fabric waste from production. The result is a super high functional fabric, which delivers in terms of sustainability as well.

The most common raw material for the production of recycled polyamide is waste material from textile production (so-called pre-consumer material). The need for pure and clean raw material streams is the reason why used textiles most often are not recycled at the end of their life – yet. Too many different material inputs and a composition of different fiber and material types makes recycling difficult. This is one of the biggest challenges for textile industry in the future: To ensure that garments can be recycled to new textile fibers and that the loop for a real circular flow of textiles is closed.