How Much Greenhouse Gases Are Emitted When We Purchase an Outdoor Jacket?

As a person who loves hiking, camping, backpacking, skiing and nature in general, I own a few different jackets for different activities and temperatures. I love my green Mountain Hardware (under Columbia brand) fleece on a chilly camping morning or night. On a sunny ski day, I wear a magenta Columbia puffer (synthetic filled) jacket. When it is snowing, I add a white Marmot Gore-tex waterproof jacket to keep dry. I have had these jackets for at least five or ten years, they have been to many trips and places with me, and they become part of my favorite memories. But if you ask me, do you know how much greenhouse gases are emitted from producing, transporting, and selling these brand jackets? I wouldn’t know. So I decided to do some research on these and other related brands.

I researched these brands (and their competitors)’ annual financial reports and impact/sustainability reports in the fiscal year 2021. Luckily, the fiscal year 2021 was the first year when these top brands below all caught up on their environmental responsibilities and started publishing complete greenhouse gas emission figures for scopes 1, 2 1 and 3 2. I have left out some brands that haven’t yet officially published their annual sustainability reports (e.g., Marmot) or complete emission data. Let’s give some credit to the four brands: Arc’teryx, Patagonia, North Face and Columbia, who have committed to transparency and taken steps to share their emission data with the public.

I also tried to correlate the plain CO2e emission data closely to our daily life. If I am the sole one responsible to accommodate all these CO2e emissions, what would be the impact on my life? Imagine all these CO2e have to be filled into refrigerators and we have to purchase and host all these refrigerators in our houses. Now close your eyes, take a moment to visualize all the refrigerators in your house, do you feel the heaviness of staring at those refrigerators? If so, congratulations! You have taken a first step towards an environmentally conscious consumer.

Before I present to you how much greenhouse gases are emitted by producing a jacket, i.e., the number of refrigerators the gases fill up to, let us make a few assumptions.

• I assume that the greenhouse gas emission is evenly distributed into every dollar in revenue.

• I assume that we are purchasing a puffer jacket.

• As for the average price of a puffer jacket, we decided to go by brand because of the huge price difference between a luxury brand like Arc’teryx and a budget brand like Columbia. Some simple google search on a puffer jacket led us to conclude the average puffer jacket price for Arc’teryx is $400 3, Patagonia $200 4, the North Face $300 5 and Columbia $100 6.

• A medium-sized refrigerator for a family of 4 has a typical capacity of 20 cubic feet 7, which equals 0.56 cubic meter.

• CO2’s density at average temperature is 1.98 kg per cubic meter 8.

Learning from the analysis above, we found that Patagonia (profile, shop) and Columbia are leading the way in unit CO2e emissions, while The North Face (under VF) has a lot to catch up. And we really welcome VF to put more effort into sustainability along with its high growth because it will make the biggest impact considering it has the largest sales revenue in FY 2021 (see the sales revenue in FY21 figure above).

Put relative performance aside, I am astonished by the absolute scale of greenhouse gas emissions to produce a puffer jacket. Are you still happy to buy a jacket if you have to accommodate all these GHGs at your own house? One alternative is to buy a used jacket or repair your old jacket. Except Columbia, all the other three brands will repair your jacket for you for a fee or free if it is under warranty. Here are the links for Arc’teryx 9, Patagonia 10 and the North Face 11. Patagonia is exceptional in promoting buying used clothes since their worn-wear program 12 has been very successful. If you do decide to purchase a new jacket, we hope this article will help you to make a conscious choice. Moreover, we want to build a platform where individual consumers like you and me can consolidate our requests to the big brands, to help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think together we can make a dent. Feel free to comment if you have any thoughts.

References

1. Scope 1,2 greenhouse gas emissions definition.

2. Scope 3 greenhouse gas emission definition.

3. Price of Arc'teryx puffer jackets.

4. Price of Patagonia puffer jackets.

5. Price of The North Face puffer jackets.

6. Price of Columbia jackets.

7. The average capacity for a medium-sized refrigerator.

8. The average density of carbon dioxide.

9. Arc'teryx repair link.

10. Patagonia repair link.

11. The North Face warranty and repair link.

12. Wornwear program to buy used clothings from Patagonia.