UKH

Currently having a rather unimpressed morning...

Why is it that some companies have either cynically & deliberately (or through a complete failure to understandard sustainability) resorted to gaslighting customers with misplaced greenwashing all over their websites and in their marketing?

For me, it is obvious that sustainability should be focused on, in order of priority:

1) supporting customers to extend lifespan of existing products. 

2) ensure products (especially those with a high embedded carbon footprint) are reused or recycled efficiently at the end of their lives. 

3) lowering the environmental impact of new products. 

However, it seems that some companies just want to sell more kit, so focus on 3) and have either forgotten or chosen to ignore the most basic of the basics. 

Am I expecting too much that the company that brags that they make the "ultimate on-sight trad ‘draw" and has ridiculous quotes from their 'sustainability manager' displayed prominently on their website makes it impossible to buy replacement slings for their supposedly "ultimate" quickdraws!

The specific quote that triggered me this morning was:

“Sustainability is rather like a belay device: helping to make sure that our family and friends are safe and feel secure on every route, for a long time.”

Any comments or thoughts on this and related issues are appreciated...

Because most companies don't care about sustainability, simply profits. Free market capitalism puts the focus nearly entirely on profits, and currently pretending to care about the environment earns more money.

Companies do what a) makes them money and by extension b) say what they think we want to hear. And in that order.

If claiming they are environmentally conscious whilst apposing right to repair achieves this, that is what they will do. I don't think we should be surprised.

It's an area where regulation is beneficial. Requirements to sell parts and replacement by third party. There's a big movement around this with Apple leading the way on how not to behave (although they may be changing their tune more recently, probably reluctantly).

Environmental sustainability is now a sales technique and marketing trend.

I walked pass a Cotswold Outdoor a few months ago which had a sign outside drawing customers in. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it read along the lines of "Save our outdoors, sustainability starts here" 

The small print being that only a very small portion of there range was considered environmentally sustainable and they were going to make no attempt to tell you which bits were included in that. 

The reality is, like you say, the most sustainable thing to do is have products which last and can be mended or fixed - sadly that doesn't equate to increased profits and sales. 

While I am feeling suitably annoyed another pet hate of mine at the moment is brands creating a cheaper, inferior product then using marketing to sell it  (often under the heading of increased sustainability) - Yes Rab Torque Jacket with the missing pocket I am looking at you.... 

On a slightly different line I work for a local authority, I fighting local councillors at the moment over a new foot bridge. I can get it manufactured in the local area to our exact specification by a local fabricating firm employing local people. However they are adamant on importing one from Amsterdam..... as it has a shiny certificate saying its 'environmentally friendly'..... 

Free market capitalism puts the onus on the consumer. Why do so many people buy stuff like apples shipped in from New Zealand or the latest iPhone just because it was recently released (random examples).

I'm certainly not trying to justify greed culture, but reworking an old adage, when pointing a finger at companies there are 3 pointing back at the consumers. So 100% agreed, the consumers should collectively give a metaphorical slap to companies selling intentionally unrepairable or unnecessary air mile produce like the apples or the iPhones 

But, I would say that rather than taking a tone that could be (unkindly) accused of passive aggression, given that we have people from Wild Country reading this -- and I assume you meant Helium 3??, let's just ask them outright. Maybe we've got the wrong end of the stick?

Wild Country folks, please can you comment on this thread and correct accuracy here if required? I can't see quickdraw slings on https://www.wildcountry.com/en-gb/karabiners-and-quickdraws, am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks!

I don't necessarily disagree, and I definitely was being very broad with blaming free market capitalism, but I also do not think the onus is realistically on the consumer. To say that consumers should give companies a metaphorical slap is assuming that A.) consumers are able to buy truly sustainable and affordable alternatives and B.) they are given all the information that would allow them to freely make this decision.

The vast majority of consumers do not earn enough nor are exposed to enough information for them to truly make a difference.

These companies control the market and it is in their best interest to not be environmentally friendly. If they can advertise in such a way that the vast majority of people won't kick up a fuss then they won't change.

In an ideal world, consumers could make a fuss and make things change, but with the state of the world at the moment this is something that has to start from the top, even if it never will.

Possibly accepting that ones traversing the country from Scotland to Cornwall in search of routes one has not climbed could be a part of the problem as much as not being able to replace a sling on a quickdraw ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

Blaming consumers is lazy.

Nearly all tech is designed to be unrepairable, finding any that isn't demands time and money that most people don't have. Producers are not disincentivised to run on an extractive model with externalised costs, investors expect them to. How can a consumer select from different sustainability claims when most of them are lies or bullshit.

If in need of replacements have a look here: https://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Climbing/Rock-Trad-Climbing/Slings-E...

Certainly for me it's a pretty rare occurrence that I'm in need of replacement webbing for quickdraws. I tend to find the gates stop working properly on wire-gates or they just become worn / rough as a unit. I do have a set of WC Protons for sport use and they are holding up very well. So overall gives a thumbs up to Wild Country.

One way we probably should be blamed is for buying the kit, any kit. Many of the routes I do I can only do because of the kit. My rack of lightweight cams etc. made from metals that needed the tops of mountains to be removed to access them. My lightweight keep-me-alive-at-minus-20C clothing etc.

I could just do the routes I can do with a fraction of this stuff. No harness, waist belay, minimal rack. Because I don't climb hard stuff, most of the routes I do were put up in that way. But I guess my dreams and my ego get in the way of me dropping down the grades and reducing the amount of kit I need to get the route done. Instead, I demand companies supply kit with less impact, but I give a very clear signal that if they can't I will probably still buy that new half-the-nornmal-weight karabiner anyhow, rather than an old steel one from ebay.

Sorry but ***pedant alert***

This isn't gaslighting. None of what you've described makes us doubt our sanity.

There are plenty of words that would describe this - misleading, disingenuous, insincere, untruthful are some of them.  But the term gaslighting is thrown quite a lot in recent years, and rarely correctly.

If I wanted the DMM ones (which are some of the ones I want to replace and are 12mm not 10mm and don't have an external plastic protector), I wouldn't have been wasting my time online trying and failing to find the current generation Wild Country ones for sale...

The irony here is (IMO) they have gone to the effort of designing an objectively better product but then don't make an effort to sell it - and do something objectively sustainable... 

I deliberately didn't put the company in the thread title as I was keen to make a wider point rather than just very blatantly have a go at one particular company that do make several products that I think are great.

Recently, I have had varying degrees of success in dealing with repair and replacement issues with multiple companies. I could legitimately post complaints about two or perhaps three of them aswell but they didn't engage in posting what I consider rather silly and OTT policy statements about sustainability online. 

Conversely, when or if I do get products successfully repaired or replaced by others, I am likely to specifically post something positive about them.

Fair enough comment about use of language. I didn't elaborate fully, but in this case I felt that they (and several other companies) are in their wider efforts explicitly making me doubt my understanding of the concept of sustainability. That was my line of thinking. 

None of the other terms you suggest really capture this process of corporate culture (or more commonly political movements) trying to redefine concepts to suit what they WANT them to represent, not what they probably should in reality. That subtle reframing of concepts of suit an agenda is neither classic disinformation nor misinformation. What it should more specifically be referred to, I don't know... 

Products often aren’t deliberately designed to be unrepairable, although I’m sure many are. it’s sometimes the case that there are difficult tradeoffs to be made between durability and repairability and consumer requirements. This article gives a sense of some of these in the case of smartphones:

https://www.consumerelectronicstestdevelopment.com/content/in-depth/why-a-m...

Guidebooks, "improvements" since the 90s have created a product which will be lucky to last a season of regular use. Their predecessors are still going strong today, over a quarter of a century old.

"But we removed the plastic cover, it must be greener" cry the publishers.

Good point about the environmental impact of travel and other issues being far more important. 

FWIW I am actively trying to be less hypocritical with things like this. Note, I say "less hypocritical" as we can always do more and in some ways the poorer you are the easier it is to be sustainable. 

I previously worked (indirectly) for Big Oil but in more recent years have refrained from applying for similar work.

I will no longer take flights for short duration climbing trips and have not flown long haul for mountaineering since 2009.

After my last weekend trip Winter climbing to Scotland in 2018 I had a long hard think about the issue of doing so. I have now explicitly decided that I am not going to do that again and I will now only make the journey for significantly longer trips.

arguable any company selling anthing but essentials should be banned from marketing themselves as sustainable. But on that score most climbing equipment is essential. And for the most part climbing equipment is extremely durable. Slings are getting a bit thin and if longevity was paramount we'd be using thicker slings with a very minor weight penalty but otherwise I think climbing goods is pretty good on the sustainability front.

Kit clothing also lasts an extremely long time but unforunately its because its not made from natural fibres. I think the helly hansen I bought in 1990 will see me out but then it'll be in the environment for several millenia afterwards. 

Cam's suffer from fashion and tech type hype. Perhaps we should ban innovation in cam products. most routes are of course protectable with Hexes.

Whilst I accept that old books are more durable what on earth are you doing to destroy a modern guide book in a season? My most used guidebook, a copy of Eastern Grit, is close to 15 years old, gets used most weekends and is absolutely fine. I expect it's still got another 15+ years left in it. 

AFAIK that has nothing much to do with environmental impact and far more to do with pure economics,  globalisation and the offshoring of printing to China and Eastern Europe.

You're absolutely correct the many modern guidebooks fall to bits as soon as you look at them but that's almost entirely due to size. The latest 500+ page A5 guides are dreadful. However my 1st edition copy of Si Pantons' North Wales Rock with card covers is still going strong after 17 years.

I am adopting a bounding case here. Imagine trying to use the latest copy of "Scottish Winter Climbs" in typical Scottish Winter conditions, it would be lucky to last a week.

I thought "I'm betting I know who that is". So I googled it and I was right 🤣. Um yeah, the entire company is about marketing. The brand you are talking about was bought to give technical credibility to a clothing brand, and unless things have changed (which I very much doubt) the upper management know zero about actual climbing and hope that by employing climbers to work for them, their crazy ideas with regards marketing will work. It's the reason the offshore manufacture because they don't actually know how to make things.

I think that's unfair, overly cynical, and almost certainly untrue. Lots of people care about money - that is after all how our economy works - but if it were the only consideration then the only companies we would have would be banks and hedge funds. 

Nor is every company Severn Trent or Macdonald's. There are over 5 million registered companies in the UK, the vast majority of which (95%) have less than 10 employees.

Very unfair assessment Mike about Oberalp not caring about climbing. A lot of the senior management are involved, actively, with mountain rescue in the region and they pretty much all climb. Having a wall attached to their office means they probably do more than we do! 

I'm curious what version of "Scottish Winter Climbs" you have been using that *could* be expected to survive those conditions. To my knowledge the SMC have never printed a version on 3 layer Goretex.

My original comment was very broad and generalised, more so I didn't have to write a paragraph. Obviously not all companies are like this. My dad runs a small trades business and money is not the only consideration.

In relation to the discussion I was speaking about large companies, as they are the companies most likely to be greenwashing. I could have definitely been more clear and said something like corporations or large companies.

I agree that other considerations come into play in these companies, but at the end of the day money is the most important and overriding motivator. A corporation would happily scrap environmental policies if it meant they would keep growth. This isn't to say I don't understand it to some degree given the society and economic system that we live in. My problem is a systemic one rather than with individual companies.

Because Apple & their ilk have spent decades and millions persuading us we must have the latest gadget on the day it is released.

[Posted from my 8-yr old MotoE2 that I am struggling to keep functioning against Google bloatware; hardware still working fine, including the battery.]

The issue with legislating that companies have to produce products in a way which makes them repairable, and to sell parts to do so, is that in many cases this may actually have a negative affect on the resources used in the product.

Say for example you've designed so type of unit for a car - you've designed it as a sealed unit which means that if one of the components in there goes wrong you have to switch out the whole unit, but because it's sealed and not designed to be opened this happens rarely say 1% of the time before the whole car is likely to be scrapped anyway.

Now along comes legislation that says the unit has to be openable, and repairable.  You redesign the product to be so, but now there's a greater likelihood of foreign objects getting in there and fouling the mechanism, plus you've got a perishable gasket.  Failure rate of this unit is now 10%, and based on experience you know that a good proportion of the mechanics will just take the easy option and replace the whole unit rather than the spare part that went wrong, it's easier and quicker and just costs their customer more anyway.

So now you've got a less reliable unit, that gets replaced 5 times more than in the past, and you have to maintain parts availability and all the resource that uses.

Is this better than just letting the designers design something well in the first place?

It certainly looks better from the public's, and politicians, point of view, but it's actually a much worse, more resource heavy situation. 

I'm sure this is true in some cases, but is replacing the sling with an identical one so important? With Wild Country getting anything from them currently seems a total pain because of Brexit issues, but surely you can get some floppy dogbones from somewhere else? Hardly seems worth throwing the krabs away over.

Come on Euan. I know for a fact that margins were absolutely top priority for them because I was told that by them. I was at the receiving end of that rubbish. All the guys involved with the actual brand, yeah I agree. The actual boss, not so much. And unfortunately he's the one that dictates policy for the rest of the company. It's why they can't sew replacement slings. Or why they had to outsource their budget carabiners to Aludesigns. Or the microcams to an Austrian firm. Or the Revo. Sorry, that's what I directly experienced. They always seem to be playing catch up. That's no direct reflection on you at all, just them. They have literally the single best brand on the market, the one that started it all and it could be so much better if they wanted it to be. I mean hell they can barely be bothered to stock their flagship shop in Bolzano with kit when the warehouse is 300m away.

This seems like a very niche and specified example that happens to fit the point you are making.

Yes, some things would be negatively affected, but it could be very easily argued that the positive benefits would massively outweigh that of the negatives. 

In an ideal world you would have competent legislators and review processes (fat chance) that would be able to account for and make rational judgements about specific situations such as these. 

It will depend on the component. If something needs to be sealed for its longevity, that's fair enough, but if that sealed unit contains a battery that's likely to fail, but the rest of the unit is robust, then it's better to make that battery replaceable.

I can't believe it's beyond the wit of our civil service to develop some text that means the rules are only applied where it's reasonable to do so.

Companies deliberately bending these rules to their advantage will be pointed out which won't be great PR.

And when did you last have sit down chats with them about anything, when where you even involved with Wild Country? 5 years ago? More? You speak from historical experience and give zero current information bar your own jaded views.

if you actually knew what went on you’d know that the Salewa World shop is now only stocking Salewa products and no other brands and isn’t even run by the head office but a branch of their mountain shop division. 
 

To the OP, replacement dog bones are on the cards. The Group Sales manager was in the U.K. last year and listened to various independent specialist stores about they want from WC and it’s been fed back to the Product Managers who I speak to on a daily basis.

As Mark Stevenson observes in a later post, the impact of our transport should not be ignored.  In fact I would go further and guess that it is likely to be far more of an issue than the impact of our gear.

Air travel is a very big producer of carbon.  I heard once that a family taking a long haul flight to the USA for a summer holiday will emit more CO2 than their use of a medium sized car for the rest of the year.  Lessening the environmental impact of our bits of kit is of course worthwhile but if people are buying the kit, believing that they are looking after the environment but then flying off to some other part of the world then they are deluding themselves.  It is a bit like washing down fish and chips with a diet coke.

I think we should also be concerned about the habit of outdoor gear companies to produce so much of their kit in China.  Even if the impact of the product's transportation to the UK is small (container ships are surprisingly low carbon, due to the amount of goods they are able to move in one go), the decision to use China supports a regime who is being very slow indeed to use renewables rather than dirty coal to produce its power.

The great thing about generalisations is that they're generally wrong. Including this one (a meta-generalisation).

What you say is true of some corporation, and not true for others. Lumping them together serves no useful purpose.

Yep, you're right, I haven't been involved for a very long time now. It could all have changed and I really hope it has, but forgive me if I am sceptical about that. Regardless of whether it's a franchise or not, their flagship store is exactly that. When I was there less than a year ago, they still had a WC section which was threadbare, and I'd seen it like that for years. It was totally depressing to see how little they value the brand. And sure it's a franchise but you would have thought that as one of the guys walked through on the way to the climbing wall they'd take note. I even sent someone a message high up in the brand and they said they agreed, but nothing happened. So you can decide I'm jaded but I can't say I've seen much change which is actually pretty sad for me. I have zero doubt that the guys actually IN Wild Country work their socks off. But the fact that they haven't managed to sort out reslinging in what, 8 years now is unforgivable. They might be sending people to chat but it's the resulting action that counts and quite honestly the lack of action should annoy you as you're the one picking up the slack.

Yes, absolutely a very niche example, but an illustration of the issues that designers face - this kind of issue is exactly what an industrial designer I know faces all the time.  Reckons he spends more time debating this kind of thing than he does designing the product! 

You're absolutely right - no legislator is going to be resourced and funded enough to know anything like as much about the products as the designers themselves nor will the time to access to the data, the past experience nor cost info which led them to make the design decisions they made.

In short, leave design to the designers.

of interest?

https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/articles/2024/january/5/greenwashing-th...

Yes agreed. That's sound design.

I do.  It's taken decades, imprisonment and suicides for them to work out the Post Office accounts system does sums wrong.  This would be far more complex a piece of legislation to enforce.

Why is it that some companies......

Can you name any that don't?

There is a reslinging service and has been for nearly 2 years.

My apologies in that case. I've missed that. Egg on face. 

The 1996 one, it has survived some fairly heavy use, the cover photos have worn off and the glossy photo pages are wrecked but the rest is perfectly useable.

Estimated 2 weeks, one full week plus 4 or 5 weekends use per year for 25 years.

It is not just the cover, it is the size and paper quality that have enabled this longevity.

Although you could argue that your lack of awareness shows that whilst they are offering the service, it's not something they are trying very hard to actively promote. 

I can't say it's ever actually occurred to me to take the guide climbing with me. I have the 2008 edition which weighs about 450g, almost as much as my belay jacket.

If there is, they seem to be doing an amazing job keeping it top secret...

In the UK..?

Exactly.

That's pretty much my point in a nut shell. They can go to the effort of putting pointless self congratulating statements on their website, but can't actually be bothered to promote concrete actions that would actually advance their stated goals...

Having look around their website multiple times, I'm still none the wiser but their obvious competitor by comparison has the link clearly on the HOMEPAGE of their website. 

On the homepage!

It's run out of Italy same as Totem and BD. A UK option is still in the cards just need to find the right partner.

There was also a thread in June 2022 started by Paul Jepson.

https://www.wildcountry.com/en-gb/resling-service

I'm also currently a bit unimpressed with a different climbing related company's efforts at design for repairability - they just informed me (very quickly and politely) that their item was not repairable in any way. The also unprompted offered me a discount on their newer version that is supposedly more robust. As such, thanks to their efforts at good customer service I'm not going to name them.

I am on the other hand going to give the example of Leki who are a big enough company to actually employ enough engineers and managers to consider such things, but who still designed their flagship carbon fibre poles to be completely unrepairable. (Not sure if this has now been resolved).

There are definitely issues with products that should be repairable, not being, however you're correct that it's a complicated issue and top down Government mandates may not be the most sensible approach.

I know of a company that built new offices to a very green spec with a massive emphasis on renewables and sustainability...and then shipped in a tree from South America as a centre piece for the atrium,

(oh, and it died within 6 months and had to be removed)

You got me giddy then, I winced slightly at the price (E16 plus postage), filled the form in and...

Service not possible
We are sorry but for the moment we cannot service your units.
Your geographic area is not covered by the service at the moment (we are working to enlarging the service throughout Europe shortly)

Please keep hammering away at this people, I know Brexit is not funny but this is just plain daft.

China has been the world's largest and fastest-growing producer of renewable power for more than a decade

Jonathan, you are of course completely correct.  Many consumers all across the world and many national governments are keen to decarbonise and buy the solar panels that are made in China.

China has only recently shown any appetite to use them themselves though.  A quick Google reveals that as recently as 2023 it was increasing its usage of coal fired power.  China is responsible for around 30% of the world's CO2 emissions.  The USA is the next worst, at around 15%.  Of course, the per capita emissions for the Chinese population is much, much lower, due to the very large population it has.  A high proportion of the population still live a relatively simple way of life with a low environmental impact.  The country's emissions largely come from the decisions of the Chinese government and how they wish to produce their power.

You can't ignore the fact that a huge amount of CO2 produced by China is because of production outsourced by western nations. It's easy to say that It's China's fault as it is on their land but we have a degree of blame too.

Completely agree.

Do bear in mind though that China expanding its use of coal as recently as last year, instead of increasing its search for green alternatives, as many other countries (including ours) are doing. 

So running for 2 years, just not in their main European market. I mean I'm not going to mention why it took them 6 years to work out that they were wrong after selling the sewing machines and getting rid of all the staff who knew how to do it... I know I'm just jaded.

You misunderstood. This is not a statistic about producing solar panels for other countries. this is their own use of renewables to produce power.. 

In 2021, China set a goal for renewable capacity — including wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power — to exceed fossil fuel capacity by 2025, a target that it has hit two years ahead of schedule, Reuters reports. Renewable sources, as China defines them, now make up 50.9 percent of the country's power capacity

UK - 39%    US - 13.1%

"A high proportion of the population still live a relatively simple way of life with a low environmental impact.  The country's emissions largely come from the decisions of the Chinese government and how they wish to produce their power"

I'm sorry, but this is just ludicrous. Have you been to China recently?

I was really disappointed with my BD walking poles, not only was the pole unrepairable but I would also have needed to buy 2 to get a replacement. 

Walking poles should be sold as single poles!

Well yes and no, electrical generation they are doing well but overall energy production from fossil fuel has far outstripped the rise of renewables, coal use quadrupled in a decade and still rising, renewables make 17% of total energy use and peak CO2 is "planned" for 2030.

Similarly India is increasing coal production by 14% per year and plan on a 40% increase by 2027 reflecting their move to be a top industrial power.

Yes, exactly. I ended up going down the route of splitting a relatively cheap replacement pair (bought from Eastern Europe via eBay) with someone else in the same situation.

And that is how the green claims can be made, publishing something that isn't actually used for its intended purpose. 

How do you get along with last minute changes of plan adopting your approach?

Changes of plan usually involve a different climb at the same crag, not a visit to a different part of the country.

So long as we can point at someone else, and say "it's their fault guvnor", we need take no personal responsibility.

When I first got into climbing, it always puzzled me how all these seemingly well educated people, spoke of environmental issues, but traveled all over the UK and the world, trips to Nepal, Greenland, Australia, all quite common.

When I asked them, they always smoothly justified it, and why it was not their fault but someone else's.

It took me sometime, to work out that they are just selfish hypocrites.

I sewed up another hole in my climbing trousers last night.

I won't name the brand of the trousers as I don't want to upset any shareholders or the current government.

And the councils who approve demolishing a perfectly good house to make way for some over sized vanity project, despite having declared a "climate emergency", and the Local Plans - how many times can we mention "sustainable" and "green" in our literature about building thousands of extra houses! 

I don't like the idea of demolishing perfectly serviceable homes to build new one's. I myself bought and live in a new build home (it was our best option for the area in which I work and my daughter goes to school). And although it retains heat very well- making it 'greener'. As far as these things go, I imagine most older properties are very capable of being improved to perform just as well.

The 'health-wealthy's' and their self-proclaimed green credentials. Darting about in their Land/Range Rovers or Audi or Porsche equivelants, and flying here there and everywhere for recreation while supping the finest most expensive single use-cupped coffees.

They need show they are above people less forunate than themselve's somehow I suppose. Human nature being what it is.

I suppose we all do it to some degree.