Low Carbon Shipping

How we get our products from the factories that make them to the shops that sell them is responsible for a significant part of a wetsuit’s carbon footprint. ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) state that freight transportation and warehousing accounts for 11% of global CO2 emission annually, so the businesses in this sector are responsible for a noticeable amount of humanity’s carbon footprint. We choose to ship our products by sea. With sea freight transporting 90% of the world’s freight and responsible for 3% of emissions, it is a much lower impact choice than airfreight. Our choice of shipping provider is determined per shipment by availability. Thankfully, however, many of the world’s biggest shipping companies are taking ownership of this issue, setting Net Zero targets and working towards decarbonizing their operations through the use of transitional fuels and more efficient ships.

Our products are transported in shipping containers, and we specify that they are packed flat (rather than hung or sent in hanging boxes) to reduce the volume of plastic and paper-based packing materials required, and to optimise space. The greater the volume of wetsuits and products that we can fit into each container shipped, the more efficient it is. Shipping a load of fresh air is bad for the environment and not cost-effective. We estimate that choosing flat packing over hanging increases the number of wetsuits per container by at least 25%.

In 2012 we engaged DPD as our carbon neutral courier partner for UK deliveries, both to our retailers and direct to customers. When travelling between retailers during our seasonal sales rounds, our sales representatives plan their routes for maximum efficiency and deliver top-up stock to the retailers they are visiting to make the most out of every journey made.