For much of BAGGU's history, our sustainability efforts focused on the elimination and minimization of waste in our operations and production processes. Sustainability can feel daunting and complex, and given our limited resources as a small company, prioritizing waste reduction felt like a natural focus — an extension of our mission to eliminate single use plastic bags.
As we've grown, we've worked to commit greater resources to operating sustainably, and to addressing sustainability more holistically. Our current Sustainability Team includes members from all our departments — Design, Production, Operations, Marketing, Brand — and meets on a monthly basis to identify and prioritize new opportunities for improvement across the company.
Design
Minimal Waste Design
To minimize waste and increase durability, our reusable bags are assembled from one continuous piece of recycled nylon material, with the neck of the bag used to construct the carrying pouch. This is one of the ways in which we work to eliminate waste during the actual construction of our products, and we are working to better implement this idea across our entire product line.Designing for Longevity
Designing bags sustainably means designing them to last. We want every bag we make to live a long, productive life so we prioritize quality, ensuring our materials and construction hold up over time and age with character. We also do this by staying true to our creative vision at any given moment — we always want the things we make to feel timely and relevant, but we do our best to avoid chasing trends.As Few Materials as Possible
To minimize waste and increase durability, our reusable bags are assembled from one continuous piece of recycled nylon material, with the neck of the bag used to construct the carrying pouch. This is one of the ways in which we work to eliminate waste during the actual construction of our products, and we are working to better implement this idea across our entire product line.
Materials
Recycled Nylon
Starting with our Spring 2022 collection, all of our ripstop nylon styles — including our namesake reusable bags — are made with 100% recycled material. Our heavyweight nylon styles are made with 59% recycled material. We use a recycled nylon filament yarn produced from pre-consumer waste, which means we’re saving scrap material from being landfilled, and in turn helping conserve petroleum resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Why 59% recycled heavyweight nylon? See our note on percentages below.Recycled Canvas
All of our canvas bags currently in production are made from 65% recycled cotton. The recycled cotton fibers come from pre-consumer waste — recovered during the creation of other cotton products, like t-shirts and socks — that would otherwise have gone to a landfill.Why 65% recycled? See our note on percentages below.A Note on Percentages
Why aren’t our recycled heavyweight nylon and recycled canvas 100% recycled material? Part of the answer is about affordability, and part is about durability.Affordability is the reason our heavyweight nylon is 59% recycled. We’ve custom-developed our recycled nylon fabrics, and cost goes up as the recycled percentage increases. Ultimately, our goal is to develop 100% recycled heavyweight nylon fabric — a goal we have successfully achieved for our ripstop nylon styles! — but for now these percentages arethe maximum we can incorporate without compromising affordability. As technology progresses and demand for recycled nylon increases, this percentage will grow.Durability is the reason our recycled canvas is 65% recycled. When cotton is recycled, the process breaks down its natural fibers, resulting in shorter “staple” fibers than would be found in virgin cotton. Spinning together recycled and virgin cotton fibers results in a more sustainable canvas fabric that still meets our high standards of strength and durability. Simply put, a 100% recycled canvas Duck Bag would cost more and wear out faster.
Leather
BAGGU made leather accessories for several years and we liked that it was a durable, natural material. However, as we grew in size and we spent more time researching the full environmental impact of our leather program it became clear that dropping it from our line was the right thing to do.As part of our Deadstock collection, a limited run of leather bags were made from leftover material of years past. We did not produce any new leather to make these bags, and used the existing material we already owned so it would not go to waste. These bags were a limited-edition, small-batch release and they won't be restocked.Recycled Mesh & Polyfill
Our Mesh styles and the polyfill in our Puffy styles are produced from 100% post-consumer recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate), best known as the clear plastic used for water bottles. These materials have passed the GRS (Global Recycled Standard) Certification, and we estimate that one Mesh Baggu is made from approximately 4.9 plastic bottles!Recycled Paper Packaging & Mailers
We package our products as minimally as possible, using as little plastic as possible. Most of our packaging is made from paper, and starting late 2020, all our paper packaging will be made from FSC-certified 100% recycled paper stock, with non-plastic eco-friendly coatings that are fully recyclable. All our hang-tag strings are made from 100% cotton and the polybags our products ship in are all biodegradable. The mailers we use to ship our orders are made in the US from 100% recycled paper and are fully recyclable.Biodegradable Poly Bags
Plastic poly bags suck, and we wish we didn’t have to use them. However, they are the best way to make sure our products arrive undamaged to our warehouse and to our customers. We think the impact from poly bags is ultimately less than that of discarding lots of dirty, damaged products. We also do our best to use them as sparingly as possible, packing multiple products in shared polybags for shipment to our warehouse.Our poly bags are certified 100% biodegradable (they comply with ISO 14021:1999 “Environmental labels and declarations”, under the definition of “Biodegradable”), which means they biodegrade in landfills. The polybags will maintain their protective performance without compromising shelf life, unless placed into an active microbial environment, such as a landfill. Once in the landfill, an additive used in the poly bags attracts microorganisms which decompose the poly bag.Bio Dry Packets
The moisture absorbing packets used in our poly bags are 100% non toxic and made from a mineral-based desiccant. Traditional silica gel packets require significant chemical and energy inputs to produce, and generate large amounts of wastewater. By comparison, our mineral-based desiccant packets are not only less resource intensive to produce, they are also more moisture absorbent!
Production & Product Lifecycle
Code of Conduct
We are guided by a simple but unwavering principle: Do the right thing.This begins with recognizing that every product we make has a social and environmental impact. We are committed to doing everything in our power to minimize and control these impacts on the environment while bolstering the well-being of both our own employees and those of our partners.Our code of conduct highlights the expectations we have of ourselves and of our manufacturers, to practice business responsibly and sustainably. You can read our code of conduct here.