To succeed in halving their emissions by 2030, Swedish outdoor footwear brand Icebug has scrutinized every part of their production. They have put up a carbon budget and they make constant improvements in materials and logistics. Some changes are complicated – but some are surprisingly easy and effective. Right now, they are helping other brands and factories switch to solar energy in Vietnam and South East Asia.

#climateaction #solarpower #1.5degrees

Meet David Eklund, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Icebug personally at outDoor by ISPO 2023
What: GRV Guided Transparency Tour
When: Sunday, June 4th, 2023 – 11am
Where: SUSTAINABILITY HUB/ Munich Order Center- Atrium 3- 124

Together with solar energy partner BayWa r.e. Icebug makes it easy (and free) to cut costs – and emissions.
Want to learn how it’s done? CEO David Ekelund is here to tell the story – and to invite brands to join Icebug’s unique offer. Don’t miss an opportunity to make both your children and CFO love you!

Where business and sustainability meet is challenging cross-roads. How can businesses grow and simultaneously reduce their carbon and environmental footprints? Companies committed and engaged in sustainable standards, processes, programs, and committed to carbon reduction, often face challenges in finding more impactful solutions. Once all internal factors and stakeholders have been streamlined, and efficiency accomplished, how does a company do more? Where can a progress be made?

This is a question that Icebug is decided to address and find sharable, scalable solutions. Icebug is a company that lives and breathes the philosophy of sustainability best business practices on every level of their business. After looking internally Icebug discovered that only switching their material choices was not enough. When looking into their own carbon footprint they discovered that over 85% of their Greenhouse Gas emissions happened before products leave factory gates. Ultimately switching only materials would never accomplish necessary carbon reduction goals, they had to find a solution to do more.

‘Addressing the climate crisis is a team sport. Best practice musts be shared for scaling. Take the opportunity to be a forerunner, we only have 7 years left to cut emissions by half. Your children (and CFO) will love you for it.’

In partnership with 5 US apparel brands, Icebug co-financed a pilot study hoping to find sharable solutions for Tier 1 factories in Vietnam. The idea was to group factories together and achieve an economy of scales, cost sharing and easing the process of energy transition for a more significant impact on carbon emissions reductions.

The solar rooftop pilot was very successful and resulted in Icebug teaming up with the solar vendor BayWa r.e. to help more brands follow – but without going through all the steps and investments that Icebug did.

In 2022, Icebug emitted about 4,000 tons of CO2e. By helping “their” Tier 1 factories switch to solar energy the brand can help saving over 5,000 tons of CO2 per year. This is thanks to the fact that all brands producing at the factories will benefit from the emission cuts. Icebug only represents a smaller part of the total production.

This project shows the explicit understanding that no individual company can do it all by themselves. Climate action, carbon reduction, is a collective, industry wide journey, and through information sharing, and sharing the burden, time and cost of solution seeking, together we will be more powerful.

One of the biggest hurdles to environmental solutions IS information sharing. Often solutions already exist, are already in place, but in order to find the path each person, team, business has to start again. Icebug’s solar initiative shows more than a practical solution to carbon reduction, but a philosophy, that we are in this together and by sharing the load, and finding solutions as a community, we might just be able to find a path to a positive future.

• Cut emissions and energy costs: using learnings from the pilot project to switch from fossil-based energy from the grid to solar rooftop
• Saving more than 5000 tons of CO2 per year
• The factories we work with will cut energy costs by 10-35%
• A process that took 14 months and cost over 300K led by Vietnam energy market experts can now be done by other brands in 1-2 months for free
• Get in touch and we will help fast track climate action in your supply chain David.ekelund@icebug.se

Share your experience and meet pioneers.
You can connect with these exhibitors personally:

Sun, June 4th, 11 am: Exped, Icebug, Iteratif, Rab & Lowe Aplin, Re:Down, Südwolle Group, Sympatex
Mon, June 5th, 11 am: Globetrotter Ausrüstung, Grüner Knopf (GIZ), Hohenstein, lavalan®, Mountain Equipment, Picture Organic Clothing
Tue, June 6th, 11 am: myclimate, SUSTON, VAUDE