Designing our products to reduce their environmental impact
In 2022, raw material extraction and product manufacturing accounted for 78.2% of our carbon footprint, which is why it is essential that we prioritise actions at this level.
Designing and manufacturing our own products presents us with the opportunity to take action in reducing our impact on the environment by carefully considering the materials and processes we use.
Summary
The ecodesign approach
Eco-design involves taking the environment into account from the earliest stages of design and throughout the product's entire life cycle.
In practical terms, this means thinking about how to reduce the product's impact on the environment throughout its life cycle.
A product that has been designed (or redesigned) using an eco-design approach remains a product that fulfils the same function as a conventionally designed product: a running T-shirt that has benefited from an eco-design approach remains, above all, a good running T-shirt!
A product's life cycle
This refers to all the phases through which a product will pass in the course of its life.
- its raw materials: extraction and processing
- production: manufacturing techniques
- transport: from the place of production to the place of distribution
- distribution: where and how it is sold
- its use: usage, washing and maintenance
- its end-of-life: repair, recycling, destruction
Lifecycle analysis: how does it work?
Analysing a product's environmental footprint enables us to identify the stages in its life cycle that have the greatest impact. This approach enables design teams to develop products that reduce their environmental impact.
First, identifying solutions and assessing environmental gains
Thanks to a network of experts in DECATHLON's various industrial processes, the design engineers identify the most appropriate solutions for a family of products (= on the stages of the life cycle with the greatest environmental impact). It is then possible to estimate the environmental benefits of these solutions (in particular using the Glimpact life cycle analysis tool). In particular, this tool enables us to carry out environmental simulations on each of our products and to imagine different alternative design scenarios.
Once the solutions have been identified, we need to make sure that there are no mandatory regulations relating to this idea, either now or in the near future. If the solution envisaged is already a legal obligation, this cannot be a differentiating criterion.
For a product to be considered, the solution chosen must be differentiating, i.e. it must not already be a standard on the market. If we take the example of cotton, the BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) label is already very widespread and can hardly be considered as an action linked to eco-design.
After analysis, the implementation of eco-design methods
Only significant impacts on the product's entire life cycle are taken into account.
To put it plainly: DECATHLON implements the most environmentally relevant solutions (recycled materials, type of dye, etc.).
Recycled polyester
Recycled cotton
Recycled plastic
Organically grown cotton
Dope dyed
Biton
Going even further
In order to improve control over its raw materials and reduce its environmental footprint, DECATHLON has decided to focus its efforts in 2022 on the five families of materials with the greatest impact in terms of quantities used and CO2 emissions: metals (aluminium, steel, cast iron), textiles (natural and synthetic), paper, plastics and rubber.
For each of these materials, dedicated teams are now responsible for:
- deploying solutions and innovations,
- setting up the most appropriate partnerships,
- monitoring two performance indicators: the percentage of products incorporating eco design materials and the equivalent CO2 emissions avoided.
Our products have to meet numerous technical and quality requirements. The alternatives are not always mature technologies on the market. For example, we use organically grown cotton for some of our products, which is less productive. As a result, this type of cotton is less available on the market than conventionally grown cotton.
By the end of 2022, 23% of DECATHLON's turnover would come from products that have benefited from an eco-design approach.
