Rossignol Group shared with “stakeholders in the mountain/winter sport segment” its plan for a recyclable ski. The Group said it “aims to actively contribute to the launch or development of exchangeable technical solutions that will further facilitate the recyclability of products throughout global mountain and winter sport markets.”
By 2028, the Rossignol Group said it “expects that one-third of its ski range will be part of a circular economy approach.”
The Rossignol Group “aspires to create momentum and movement around the life cycle and recyclability of skis and winter sports equipment. To accelerate this transformation, the French company is emphasizing the importance of initiating a collaborative approach to reduce the environmental impacts of the segment collectively.”
The Group announced today that it would “make the technical specificities of its first recyclable ski, the Essential, available to all, including industry peers and competitors. The details of the construction and composition of the Rossignol Essential ski will be available on an open-access basis. Technical plans and nomenclature are available on the Rossignol Group website here.”
Following more than three years of R&D, the Rossignol Group developed its first ski with a “high recyclability potential of 77 percent, around ten times higher than the average of skis currently manufactured today. By publicly sharing its first eco-responsible innovation, the Group hopes to foster the type of collective engagement that can move all stakeholders toward more sustainable production and a more circular economy.”
“We are very conscious of the current issues related to recycling winter sports equipment today. As a historic player in the mountain economy, we have a social and environmental responsibility to address this,” added Vincent Wauters, CEO, the Rossignol Group. “Our desire is to encourage cooperative interaction amongst all stakeholders by exploring potential improvements in recyclability and the life cycle stages of products. This movement will only be possible together.”
Rossignol collaborated with MTB, a recycler and manufacturer since 1981, who developed a process for grinding, separating and re-using materials through a process that “improves the recycling of conventional skis and, in particular, the new Rossignol Essential recyclable ski.”
In addition to sharing the construction plans for the Essential, the Rossignol Group is also promoting the “development of specific ski recycling channels that would allow the winter sports industry to benefit from the Group’s advances in the recycling and recovery of products at end-of-life.”
In sharing the innovation and design of its first recyclable ski, the Rossignol Group hopes to “contribute to an acceleration in the global development of collective initiatives across various segments and global markets for the collection, recycling and repurposing of winter sports equipment.”
Photo courtesy the Rossignol Group
