We calculated the carbon footprint of your schoolbag!

In 2021, we launched our major carbon footprint project. Our schoolbags have been made from recycled polyester for five years now, but we wanted to understand our environmental impact to see how we could improve further.

To achieve this, we enlisted the help of a specialist: La Belle Empreinte , which supports companies in their eco-responsible exemplarity. The process took place in three stages:
1. Measuring our carbon impact.
2. Complete impact measurement.
3. Diagnosis and eco-design.

We analyzed with them the life cycle of all our products according to the French ADEME and European PEF method. This method also allows us to evaluate ourselves against the market average, which is an indicator for our buyers who are looking for more responsible products.

A product's life cycle represents its journey from conception to end of life. Each stage is carefully analyzed: we assess the environmental impact of material production, manufacturing, daily use by children, and even the product's end of life. This allows us to make informed decisions to minimize our carbon footprint at every stage, without compromising style or quality. Our entire production chain participated in this exercise: material suppliers, spare parts manufacturers, manufacturing workshops, logisticians, carriers, and our entire team.

We reveal the analysis of our carbon footprint

We draw some interesting and sometimes even surprising lessons from this:

• 80 to 90% of the carbon footprint of our products (the difference depends on the type of product) is generated by the material and the finishing (printing, embroidery, etc.);
  
  
• our products have a carbon footprint lower than the market average of almost 40% for school bags and 35% for backpacks;
  
  
• La Belle empreinte determined the carbon footprint of the "ideal schoolbag" and then compared it to our products. Our performance ranges from 75% "good" (blue butterfly duffel bag) to 93% "ideal" ( medium Rainbow Starry Schoolbag ). We're pretty proud of these numbers!
  
  
• Transport only represents 2 to 4% of the carbon footprint of our products. Relocating manufacturing would therefore have no impact on our carbon footprint, on the contrary, since we take care to ensure that the sourcing of all our materials and accessories is very localized around our manufacturing workshops, which would be impossible to find in Europe (in any case, we haven't found it yet!).
  
  
• As we have already analyzed in a previous article "Recycled polyester: eco-responsible solution?" , even if it seems counter-intuitive, recycled polyester remains the best choice to optimize our eco-responsibility, even compared to other materials such as organic cotton (it takes 5 tons of water to produce 1kg of cotton) or Lyocell (fiber from wood pulp).
  
  
  
  
  

  Conquering eco-design

  From 2022, we have started a eco-design approach for our products . We recruited William, a product designer, and entrusted him with this mission. Fabienne, our production manager, led the project with La Belle Empreinte and pushed our suppliers and workshops to optimize our production process by integrating these eco-design constraints.

  For the new 2023 collection, designed in 2022, we mainly use recycled polyester for the manufacture of our school bags, representing 80% of their composition . Our margin of improvement was unfortunately relatively small, since the material and the prints represent 80% of the carbon footprint and the patterns and graphics of our school bags are the very DNA of our brand.

  We've begun working to reduce the amount of fabric we use, as well as the elements that make recycling difficult or impossible. All the fabrics and threads used in our school bags are made from recycled polyester that meets GRS standards.
  However, for some elements such as the bottom, some tabs and biases, we use imitation leather because of its appearance and resistance to wear (our children are real school bag torturers!). Unfortunately, these materials cannot be recycled due to their polyurethane coating.

  We're constantly evolving and plan to soon offer collections made entirely from 100% recycled materials. For the next collection, we've revised some designs to reduce the amount of fabric used.
  Our ultimate goal is to achieve a fully recycled polyester composition for our school bags to facilitate their recycling. Currently, the high cost of recycling is due to the disassembly process, which takes almost as long as manufacturing a school bag itself! This is also why each year we reinforce our school bags even more to make them last longer. We know, we will sell fewer of them as a result (some of our school bags last more than 5 years!), but we do it with our children in mind!

  So, there you have it, everything you need to know about our efforts to offer you better school bags, or rather, less harmful (let's not mince words!) for the planet. We'll continue to keep you updated on all our progress.

  Happy holidays to all and above all, don't forget: use sunscreens that are kind to the oceans and corals!