sustainable gym equipment review - casall conscious choice
Sustainable gym equipment and sportwear from Scandinavia
Swedish brand Casall have set out to develop a capsule collection of what they call ‘conscious’ gym equipment. See here for more.
It may still be in its infancy but we have been watching this collection of natural gym equipment and indeed the brand’s far larger sustainable fitness clothing collection for a while now and it looks like Casall are intent on reaching 100% ‘conscious choice’ in their clothing and 50% ‘conscious choice’ in their gym equipment range by 2025.
The sustainable gym wear market is expanding fast, with countless players now on the scene, from the UK’s Hylo Athletics to Danish brand Rockay high-performance running gear but Casall have their Scandinavian design aesthetic locked down and have developed a strong position in their niche.
corporate social responsibility / sustainability targets
As they become more and more sustainable in their manufacturing and indeed corporate strategy, they are in line with another Swedish brand (are you seeing the pattern here?) we admire for similar reasons, this time in the gym equipment market, called Eleiko - see their sustainability credentials here.
Below are Casall’s stated sustainability targets at the moment (sourced from their website here):
WEAR – the entire Wear collection shall be of *Conscious Choice criteria by 2025.
TOOL & PRO – At least 50% of the materials used for Casall product line shall be of *Conscious Choice criteria by 2025.
PACKAGING - Renewable, recycled and degradable material in all packaging, this is gradually changed with the aim of being completed by 2025. AW19 we launched a completely new packaging concept which means that we will save 23 tonne of plastic per year.
CIRCULAR PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLE - Ensure that our products are marked correctly for a sustainable circular flow.
ENERGY - Casall only uses renewable energy at own premises and are pushing for the change at rented premises.
COMPANY CARS - All company cars shall be fossil-free by 2025
CLIMATE COMPENSATION - Casall shall climate compensate all annually air and car travel through 'Vi Skogen' foundation that focus on reduced poverty and better climate.
TRACK CO2 EMISSION - Track CO2 emission on inbound and outbound freight from Europe and Asia with focus on lowering impact and/or possible compensating. This is an ongoing focus for us.
OUTBOUND FREIGHT - Offer end consumer on Casall own webshop a more Sustainable delivery option by Speed Freight = higher CO2 = higher prices or Consolidated Freight to lower CO2 = lower price and reduced number of deliveries. The aim is to have this live during 2020.
Natural gym equipment / Casall Yoga mats, mobility rollers and yoga blocks
We have been testing out the Tube Roller Bamboo and the Yoga Mat 4mm Bamboo at home. It is worth pointing out that these are not entirely made of upcycled materials, they contain more like 25% bamboo but, in the context of a gym industry that resolutely refuses to make any concessions to the climate emergency and the importance of circular economy thinking that avoids creating more waste at the end of a products’s life, these two items of eco-friendly yoga / stretching equipment are ideal for any gym trying to minimize its impact on the planet.
We are fans, we also recognise that Casall as a company still has a long way to go to evolve their integration of upcycled, natural and circular economy materials. The road is long, especially long for those leading from the front - which is exactly what this brand are doing and we applaud them for that.
what is sustainable gym equipment? a gym designer perspective
It’s worth defining this term upfront as it can be confusing, especially as there is so little truly sustainable gym equipment on the market today.
Often as gym designers, we use our own creative interpretation of a product to see how it could be applied to a gym environment, borrowing from adjacent sectors and product categories or simply specifying something ourselves from a local carpenter for example.
Why do we do this? Our humble opinion is that the gym design industry still has a long way to go to align itself with circular economy principles, a more natural approach to gym interiors and a shift to more sustainable business practices generally.
Truly natural gym equipment should, in our opinion, be made of natural materials such as wood, bamboo, wool or leather. It should ideally have minimal environmental impact, be made of upcycled waste or industry bi-products, and have a manufacturer take-back scheme at its end of life to ensure responsibility is taken upfront by those manufacturers at the time of making the sale… or perhaps in the end an evolved version of leasing will be amore circular economy aligned approach anyway, as we see happening in the furniture industry for example
If we’re being generous, we might also extend the definition of natural gym equipment to include pieces of gym equipment that promote natural fitness, functional fitness training and primal exercises in the gym that are aligned with our evolutionary history as animals, even if the materials used to make that piece of gym equipment do not fit in completely with the points above.
Here clearly there is some interpretation needed but given how much work there is to be done in the gym design sector in this sense, unfortunately we are often left making this small trade-offs when selecting gym equipment for our gym design assignments.