Sustainability

At Y1 Sport we are passionate about not just growing the game, but doing so in a sustainable way. Over the past three years we have been making big changes within our business to be as sustainable as possible and to reduce our carbon footprint.

A few of our key projects are outlined below:

1. Changing our packaging to recycled / biodegradable - all products are now shipped in either cardboard boxes with recycled paper tape and clothing/accessories are delivered in biodegradable mailer bags. These can be put into your food waste disposal in order to reduce our impact and our customers.

2. Recycled teamwear - we have designed and produced a performance teamwear range all made from recycled fabrics and organic cotton. We call this the ENVO2.1 range and is one of the most environmental in the teamwear industry. From our padded bench jackets to our playing shirts, they are made with recycled fabric and are some of the most premium items we have ever produced. Hockey Wales are a pioneer of the ENVO2.1 range as shown at the CWG.

3. Becoming Carbon Negative - The main goal of Y1 Sport was to become carbon negative across our entire business. This is a big step and we have recently formed a partnership with sustainability consultants, Carbon Jacked. They are continually doing a full assessment of our business as we look to reduce our co2 emmissions wherever we can and we will also look to work with carbon offsetting projects to become a carbon negative business.

What is ENVO2.1?

September 1, 2022

Released in 2021, ENVO2.1 is our headline teamwear offering. We'd always wanted to make products out of more sustainable materials but we'd struggled due to our size and the availability of sustainable fabric. ENVO2.1 not only makes our teamwear offering more sustainable through the use of sustainable materials in it's production but also by delivery and it's supply chain.

Timeline

We'd been interested in making sustainable garments for many years now. Our first sustainable product was the Upcycled 1/4 zip which we made in 2019. We then trialled the hugely successful "sustainable collection" in 2020. Since then, much of YoungOnes Apparel releases have comprised of a great deal of sustainable pieces. However, given the rise in demand for our teamwear, we knew the thing that was going to have the biggest impact is the creation of a sustainable teamwear range. So in 2020 we started drawing up plans for ENVO2.1.

The first thing we had to do was develop products. This required us to look at creating products that;

Could withstand stresses and strains of high impact sport.
Used materials that could be substituted for sustainable alternatives.
Looked and felt premium

After this we had to look at factories. We needed to find a factory that had a history of creating premium sportswear from recycled materials. We also had to consider certification and making sure factories not only passed environmental but also ethical checks.

Once this was done we went about sampling and re-sampling the products until we were absolutely sure that the products were perfected. Then in early 2021, when the range was finalised, we launched the ENVO2.1 range in September 2021.

Products

The ENVO2.1 range is made up of the following items;

Playing Shirt
Playing Shorts
Playing Skort
Training T-Shirt
Midlayer
Fugi 1/4 Zip
Tracksuit Bottoms
Padded Jacket
Bench Coat

Sustainability

The main driving force behind creating ENVO2.1 range was sustainability. We have made the ENVO2.1 range more sustainable by ensuring the following;

All items are made from either recycled polyester or organic cotton
Items are transported from the factory in environmentally friendly ways
Items are shipped to customers in environmentally friendly ways

By having thousands of products, made from recycled materials, sea shipped from our factory to the UK and embroidered we have drastically reduced our footprint. So much so that we estimate our new model to emit less than half the carbon than traditional teamwear models.

Future

Going forward we will continue to develop out ENVO2.1 teamwear range. This will be both in the supply chain but also in the end product. We are currently in the process of developing 4 new products that will be released in January 2023.