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Fjällräven adds new dimensions to icon products in circular initiative Samlaren
The company’s head of sustainability, Christiane Dolva Törnberg, shares about this plus coming sustainable launches, including the most sustainable Kånken to date.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
2 Mar 2021

Norwegian-born Dolva Törnberg describes how Fjällräven considers waste as lost potential.

— Samlaren (The Gatherer) is a great example of how we can minimize waste by giving leftover fabrics new life as limited-edition pieces, she says. It’s a project under our umbrella initiative Zero Waste and the collection features limited products made from left-over materials from our production.

What was the toughest challenge when creating it? 

— We realized that perfectly functional and durable materials were left on the shelves, as we could not use 100% of it in our regular production. We wanted to turn this from being a problem, into creating products of value. The challenge for our design team was that we had these small material quantities in random colours, not planned to be used together. We wanted to use it in the best way, and so the design team had to form the design and development process around optimizing the use of these fabrics.

— Usually, the materials will be the answer to the product need, this time we had to look at it the other way around. It’s been a challenging but fun journey. Sometimes clear restrictions can open up great creative paths.

Expect for Samlaren, how will you work with circularity onwards? 

— The concept of circularity is wide and includes both how we work with ensuring that the products can last for as long as possible, hopefully for generations or perhaps enabling second or third owners use as well. Those are the closest loops in the circles, where we keep the product value at its highest, and put the environmental impact to the best use. Circularity also focuses on what materials we use; how much is virgin and how much is recycled. Recycled input materials are a priority when we select new what we call ”preferred materials”. As a final part, circularity is also what can happen at the end of a product’s lifespan, and there is a lot of interesting developments in material recycling that are coming up. One exciting example is our recovered wool program where we managed to develop products using wool from Sweden that would otherwise have gone to waste tells Dolva Törnberg.

She shares how the company’s constant search for recycled materials, and different alternatives and innovations related to sustainability will result in a new fabric for the upcoming fall.

— It’s called Pine Weave, which we have spent the past years developing. It is a plant-based, durable material made of traceable wood raw material from cultivated and certified spruce and pine trees outside Örnsköldsvik, Fjällräven’s hometown, in northern Sweden. The fabric will be introduced for the first time in a new and exciting addition to our iconic Kånken Family: Tree Kånken.