Sasta

We are guided by the old Finnish philosophy of respecting nature, which takes many notions. It directs our sustainable thinking in design and production, while it also underlines the old wisdom of Finnish outdoorsmen – equipping yourself properly when heading out into the wilderness.

With our roots deep in the last true wilderness of Northern Europe, we want to do our part to ensure that our nature is preserved also for future generations. We are paying increasing attention to the environmental impact of our operations and are constantly working to find responsible ways to provide more responsible clothing for demanding wilderness conditions – clothing of high quality and function, that last a long time.

MATERIALS
We choose materials that are best suited for the intended use of our products and can be trusted in tough wilderness conditions. Firstly, the materials we use must be durable, easy to maintain and as environmentally friendly as possible.
Different recycled materials have been used in our collections for decades. For example the cotton-polyester blend we use is made from organic cotton and recycled polyester, the raw material for which comes from used plastic bottles. Our classic Sarkawool consists of recycled wool, which is old wool waste that has been torn into fibres and then remade into fabric. Our merino wool items consist of mulesing-free merino wool, which guarantees better living conditions for sheep. Finally, most of the cotton we use is organic.

We try to also look beyond just the materials we use, and as an example, the cardboard boxes used as packaging material are partly made from recycled materials - and in our own operations, we re-use boxes as much as we can.
We work hard to minimize the use of substances, that are harmful to the environment. We have been phasing out the use of long-chain perfluoroalkyl compounds in the material finishes (so-called C8 finishes) for many years. Many of our products have already a C0 finish (PFC free) and our goal is to move to it step by steps, as material suppliers are able to offer us such options. We also keep a close eye to avoid material loss and carefully plan the use of all the materials we procure.

We are constantly investigating the availability of various new materials and their suitability for our needs and for the type of garments we produce. Whenever possible, we switch to more environmentally friendly materials, unfortunately they are not yet available for all needs. For example, virgin polyester is still widely used in hunting products, as we have not found suitable alternatives made from recycled materials. Our suppliers continuously keep developing more responsible materials and give us a an even wider range of responsible material alternatives to choose from. That allows us to keep improving on the amount of responsible materials used, without making compromises on the quality and function of our clothes.

The proportions of different raw materials in the fabrics we used in 2021:

You can find more detailed information about the materials we use, their origin and certificates on our Materials page