Salomon Winter Sports Announces New Sustainability Ambitions

Salomon, the outdoor sports brand that has been creating ski equipment in the French Alps since 1947, today announced the implementation of a new, more sustainable design ambition across its entire winter sports category. This more responsible approach to creating winter sports equipment—including hardgoods such as skis, ski boots, goggles and helmets—is another step toward realizing the overall commitments the company has made to lessen its environmental impact. Most notably, by 2030, Salomon has pledged to reduce its overall carbon emissions by 30 percent and committed to creating 100 percent of its products with circular economy principles.

Recognizing that the future existence of Alpine skiing, Nordic skiing and snowboarding are directly impacted by climate change, Salomon today confirms that sustainability will be a major aspect of its performance parameters in future winter sports products. With the motivation to act across its entire supply chain beyond its own operations, Salomon Winter Sports has set forth a plan to operate more sustainably by:  

• Launching a range of progressive and highly sustainable winter sports products
• Defining a list of sustainability “basics” that all winter sports products must meet by 2025, in line with Salomon’s global sustainability strategy 
• Collaborating with partners at resorts and in distribution channels, as well as engaging with the winter sports community and shaping the discussion towards ambitious collective sustainability goals

Already, Salomon Winter Sports has instituted a number of sustainability measures across its business by reducing packaging, improving product durability and repairability, removing chemicals and materials of concern, and integrating the use of more sustainable materials. (Details of these actions are outlined below.)

“As the global leader in the winter sports category, we feel a responsibility to set an example of how our winter sports business can operate in an increasingly sustainable manner,” says Xavier LeGuen, Vice President of Winter Sports for Salomon. “The health of the sports we love is dependent on the planet and this is an opportunity for us to do our part and help show the way forward by sharing our sustainability pillars inside our winter sports business. In the future, we expect that the entire winter sports industry will work together to advance efforts in this area and make a positive impact on the climate threat we are all facing.”

The highly technical nature of winter sports equipment leaves little room for design variability, where space is often made to implement sustainable elements in products. The nature of products like skis—which are comprised of metals, glass/carbon fibers and wood—makes sustainable manufacturing a formidable task for R&D professionals. Despite this challenge, Salomon’s Winter Sports department is pledging to chart a new, more sustainable course in the years ahead, guided by the goals set forth in the company’s overall sustainability commitments unveiled in 2019. As Salomon has recently begun to do in its footwear range, the winter sports product design team is now working to develop sustainability excellence that does not compromise performance. 

NEW S/MAX eSKIN NORDIC SKI USES RECYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLES IN CORE CONSTRUCTION

This month, Salomon introduces the new S/MAX eSkin Nordic ski, the company’s first ski constructed with a sustainable mindset. The ski’s core construction utilizes recycled plastic bottles. The new core is called S-CORE 45—the S standing for “sustainable” and “45” representing the percentageofthe core weight that is made from the recycled Polyurethane (PET) foam from plastic bottles. (Percentage reflects the amount in a 201cm length ski.) The recycled PET is inserted into a Densolite mold, giving the S-Core 45 the perfect blend of lightness and durability.

 Don’t let the ski’s environmentally friendly attitude fool you; the new S/MAX eSkin has the performance to push the pace. It features the same thickness profile and sidecut as Salomon’s World Cup racing ski, the S/LAB Carbon Classic, in order to maximize kick, glide and acceleration. The S/MAX eSkin ski will be widely available in the fall of 2021. A limited quantity of S/MAX eSkin skis are arriving at select retailersin Scandinavia this month. 

“The S/MAX eSKIN ski is the result of three years of research and development to find the best combination of reducing the footprint of our raw materials, maintaining our high durability standardsand delivering the performance skiers expect—all at a competitive price,” says Aloïs Vacelet, Salomon’s Product Line Manager for Salomon Nordic skis. “We are also committed to making the sport more accessible, and with eSKIN technology, you don’t need to kick wax. It’s about waxless grip and silent glide. Additionally, with the SHIFT-IN binding, you can adjust the performance of your ski to the snow conditions, the track profile or your physical shape on the day. And you can do all of these things while staying on your skis.”

SUSTAINABILITY MEASURES ALREADY TAKING PLACE WITHIN SALOMON WINTER SPORTS

In addition to creating flagship products with a sustainable theme, the various categories within Salomon’s Winter Sports business have been working to incorporate sustainability “basics” that make a global impact in the following areas:

• PACKAGING: All cardboard packaging for Alpine and Nordic ski boots, snowboard boots, bindings, helmets and goggles is 100 percent FSC-certified; all single-use plastics in snowboard boot packaging have been eliminated; plastic bags around pairs of ski poles have been replaced with a small plastic clip, saving more than 5.4 tons of plastic per year (12.6 tons of CO2); the plastic window on goggle packaging has been replaced with a full FSC-certified cardboard box, eliminating the need for glue; the use of 1 million single-use polybags has been avoided since they were removed from snowboard binding packaging
• DURABILITY AND REPAIRABILITY: 100 percentof snowboard bindings are repairable and baseplates now have a lifetime warranty, emphasizing re-usage over consumption 
• REMOVAL OF CHEMICALS AND MATERIALS OF CONCERN:100 percent of all Salomon snowboard boots are PFC/PVC-free; snowboards now use cork rails instead of rubber rails for a more eco-friendly ride on high selling boards; the entire Nordic ski boot range will be PFC/PVC-free by Fall/Winter 2023; the alpine ski boot range will be PFC/PVC-free by Fall/Winter 2025  
• INTEGRATING THE USE OF MORE SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS: All skins for backcountry skiing, Nordic skiing and snowboarding split boards now use Mohair sourced from sustainable and cruelty-free production; snowboard cores are using more bio-sourced materials in their construction; in all black colored alpine ski bindings, 10 percent of the product is made from recycled materials

Beyond these various steps taken at Salomon’s Annecy, France headquarters, the Amer Sports ski factory in Altenmarkt, Austria (where Salomon and Atomic skis are manufactured),

has done an exemplary job with its waste management scheme and energy sourcing. The Amer Sports Winter Sports Operations team has received the Austrian Phönix 2014 waste management award for its waste re-use scheme at the facility, which operates 100 percent on renewable electricity and features a biomass power plant.  

“The impetus for these changes has come from our employees, who are passionate about doing business in a mindful manner, as well as some of our professional athletes and ambassadors, who are very committed to environmental preservation and sustainability,” says LeGuen. “Longtime Salomon ski ambassadors like Mike Douglas, Chris Rubens, Victor Galuchot, Greg Hill, Leah Evans and all our winter sports athletes have been vocal in their desires to see Salomon transform its winter sports for good through a new sustainable approach that does not sacrifice the performance of our products.”