PrimaLoft Inc. has been reducing the impact of its products by using recycled material, designing for circularity and developing technology that combats microplastic pollution. Now, the company is rethinking the way it manufactures its products.
PrimaLoft announced developments to its PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. manufacturing platform.
P.U.R.E., which stands for “Produced Using Reduced Emissions,” is a proprietary, renewable manufacturing technology that today achieves “up to 70 percent reduction in carbon emissions.”
“The challenge with P.U.R.E. was to look at a manufacturing process that has been used globally and reinvent the way that we are producing a product. So, we looked at the whole manufacturing process and focused on where all the dirty emissions are coming from,” said Tara Maurer-Mackay, senior vice president, product strategy.
PrimaLoft completed an environmental assessment of the insulation manufacturing processes and identified the most impactful opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. From there, its engineers focused on increasing energy efficiency by changing the fiber recipe, introducing new thermal equipment and optimizing the energy source to reduce carbon emissions drastically. The fiber itself maintains the same basic structure as its existing batted insulations, with special attention paid to the binder fiber’s recipe that provides the insulation with its structural integrity and durability.
“We’re not just looking at the products we make,” said Mike Joyce, PrimaLoft president and C.E.O. “We’re looking at how we make them and relentlessly pursuing the optimal processes for drastically reducing our environmental impact.”
The company said while the results will grow as P.U.R.E. technology is expanded throughout its footprint in future seasons, it provided key environmental impacts from the first year of production with one of its insulation products:
•Up to 70 percent CO2 savings • 231,075 kgs of carbon savings • Total savings of 1,032,998 kilometers, or the equivalent of driving around the world 26 times or planting 10,613 trees.
“This significant shift in our manufacturing technique is not the only factor in reducing our carbon emissions,” said Joyce. “Since 1997, we’ve used post-consumer recycled material in place of virgin polyester to make PrimaLoft products, wherever possible, without compromising our world-class performance. Independent of PrimaLoft P.U.R.E., this contributes significantly to reducing our emissions. We’ve determined that we have saved approximately 16,000 tons of CO2 in this way since 2015. We expect our overall impact to be significantly reduced as we continue to incorporate more recycled material and expand our P.U.R.E. technology across our footprint and product line.”
In 2019, PrimaLoft launched PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. manufacturing to produce a version of its PrimaLoft Gold Insulation, which is also made from 100 percent recycled material. In 2022, PrimaLoft will incorporate its P.U.R.E. manufacturing technology for PrimaLoft Silver Insulation and PrimaLoft Black Insulation, both made of 100 percent recycled P.E.T., to serve different customer needs. PrimaLoft is working towards incorporating this technique throughout the product series to scale it further across its manufacturing footprint.
“Our goal is to set a standard for the industry to follow, ultimately working together to co-exist with the environment in perfect harmony,” said Joyce.
Brands using PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. include Patagonia, Alpkit, Bergans of Norway, Kodiak, and Viking.
