On Greenwashing

Ah, greenwashing. The likely most dreaded affront for a brand with "eco" in its name, the term was recently hurled our direction and so we thought, what better time and what better forum to address it than a blog? Despite the inherently prickly nature of the topic, we thought it was best to hit it head-on. So let's send it. 

When mountainFLOW was founded in 2016, the literal cornerstone and original value proposition was to be an eco alternative to the extent line of fluorinated ski waxes that were (and sadly, still are) so prevalent. Despite a growing breadth of research on the subject, international racing bodies have been slow to mobilize on articulated bans due to less-than-stellar testing measures, resulting in a strange purgatory of sorts that puts the onus on the individual racers to do the right thing. Granted, it's a giant step in the right direction but multiple years of pushing back regulatory practices continue to dilute the mission with bureaucracy.

As mountainFLOW has grown across multiple industry sectors, it has become abundantly clear that incumbent industry manufacturing processes for literally most of the brands out there utilize harmful chemicals and petroleum-bases. To be clear, the point of this blog is absolutely not to put other brands on blast. It is to highlight mountainFLOW's uniqueness in bike, ski, hike, and industrial applications. 

Instead of having a token eco SKU, everything we make is plant-based, biodegradable, and nontoxic. All of our 4oz bottles of bike lube are made from 100% post consumer recycled plastic. Our Wash + Degreaser utilizes a recycled cardboard sleeve that uses 70% plastic than a traditional plastic bottle. Our ski wax comes in compostable packaging. Our ski poles utilize 95% fewer carbon emissions than virgin aluminum with full product circularity measures being implemented this year (meaning you can recycle your old poles to be new poles). Our new water bottles are made from a corn bioplastic that uses 70% less plastic than anything else on the market currently. We have line of industrial dust suppressant that was utilized at the Sea Otter Classic festival this year with more applications incoming. We could go on... and believe me, we intend to. 

As we continue to expand, we've even adjusted our branding to reflect this holistic approach across all of these different verticals. Instead of being a ski wax or bike lube or ski pole or water bottle or industrial company, we are all of it: our new monicker is Sustainable Outdoor Performance and we look forward to the future but are also super stoked on our present. Big things are coming from mountainFLOW.