by Torstein, Therese, Thomas, Martin, Andreas and Lene
Surfers are known to cast a critical eye over their environmental footprints. The nature is their playground and the pollution can impact the wave quality. Since the 50’s surfers has been relying on nepoprene as the main material in wetsuits. This is a non-renewable material and it requires an energy-intensive manufacturing process. Patagonia has now taken the first step in producing environmental friendly wetsuits through their new product line Yulex. This is the world`s first neoprene-free wetsuit. It consist of 85% natural rubber, replacing a petroleum-based materials with a plant-based one. This can reduce CO2 emissions in the production process by up to 70%. Surfers are now able to choose plants over petroleum and renewable over non-renewable.
Important features with a wetsuit is that it is comfortable to wear, not reducing flexibility in shoulders and knees and that it looks cool. The Patagonia Yulex are as good as all other neoprene wetsuits in the market today.
Their Yulex production line consist of four different wetsuits with different thickness, making the wetsuit suitable for most of the conditions. One issue is that at this moment they have not made any neoprene-free wetsuit suitable for arctic/winter conditions. When Patagonia makes a neoprene-free wetsuit that suits these conditions, their new product will fit all conditions and there is no reason to buy a neoprene wetsuit. To us, the choice is easy. We choose Patagonia Yulex. What do you choose?
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It the price range of the wetsuits similar to others? Even though a lot of people would probably want to buy a more eco-friendly wetsuit it is not certain that everyone can afford it. That might cause problems for the company later.
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Great initiative. Like Ibrahim, I also question the price point of the wetsuit. In addition to saving costs and the environment, by doing this, they also establish themselves as thought leaders within this part of the segment, and then when a new wave of demand driven by sustainability comes, they are one step in front of the others.
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Like Ibrahim and August – I think the product is great. I would also be interested in the price range, although I think it might not play a very important role as surfers might be less price-sensitive than others.
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I like this innovative product. But like the others, I’m also curious about the price.
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Very interesting post. I have actually owned a few wetsuits through the years, but I have never thought about the impact of neoprene. If they are able to match the quality this would be a really interesting product, and I do believe this is something surfers and other athletes would be willing to pay a premium for. So as long as it isn’t that much more expensive I think it will be a great hit in the market!
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Well i have no idea what wet suit is.. but i know wet suits have been here for so long, and creating environmental issues. I always had thought how angry would divers and surfers would be getting seeing pollution in the sea water but may not have realized even their suits are also a super polluter. I personally think that producer of this new suit should be app-loused.
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I did some reasearch, and prices are ranging from $299-$529, depending on which temperatures and conditions they are made for. The most expensive one is made for 0-3 degrees celsius, and the cheapest one are made for 18-23 degress celsius. If you look at other companies that sells wetsuits, such as Rip Curl, prices are pretty much in the same range as Patagonia’s Yulex model – so this should not be of any concern.
Both cool and sustainable at the same time? I’d go for Yulex.
You can see the full product line of Patagonia Yulex here: http://www.patagonia.com/shop/yulex-natural-rubber-wetsuits
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Cool initiative taken by Patagonia. Given that existing wetsuits last a relatively long time, and new purchases are not made very often by suit owners, could Patagonia create an incentive program or discount program for trading in their old pollutant heavy wetsuits in exchange for new neoprene free ones that they create? Although the old wetsuits are already made, and the pollution has already taken place, perhaps Patagonia could market this initiative and raise awareness about the amount of non-renewables that go into traditional wetsuits through it.
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I think it’s very good that someone is doing something to improve the sustainability of the production of wetsuits, especially when it can reduce emissions by so much. I’m not a surfer, but if the price doesn’t differ to much from other wetsuits, I would choose Patagonia Yulex.
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I really like the idea behind Patagonia wetsuits, making something mainly made from unsustainable materials, sustainable. I’m just curious if the wetsuits are as durable and long lasting as regular wetsuits made from non-sustainable wetsuits? If the price is similar to the non sustainable wetsuits and all the properties are also the same, why haven’t more companies opted to use the sustainable materials?
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This sounds like a great innitative. My only concern is that replacing latex with rubber might not be a more sustainable choice. The reason for this is that production of rubber demands huge areas of rubber trees. This has resulted in deforestation especcialy in China, as natural forrest has a far greater cappasity of reducing CO2 than rubber tree plantation. Low wages and poor working conditions are also an issue.
But in the long runrubber protuction might have more sustainable potential than latex, but not for sure
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I think that this is a beautiful initiative and in particular a sustainable one. I thought about the possibility of resulting prices that could be higher than that of the other wetsuits, but at the same time i think that surfers will be willing to buy the new ones made of more sustainable materials in order to be able to make their step to help the environment, that, as others have said, is really iportant for them.
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Patagonia Yulex wetsuits are great no doubt about it. But for many surfers it’s out of their budget for a wettie. There’s some other options from the likes of Picture, Soöruz (both French) and Sheico (Taiwanese). We recently wrote about it here: https://shaka-surf.com/blogs/news/how-can-i-buy-a-sustainable-wetsuit
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