Patgonia’s Nano Puff jacket, pictured here, may not look all that different to previous generations, but in typical Patagonia style, it has been improved on the sustainability front by employing a synthetic fill with a groundbreaking technology behind it.
That fill is 100% recycled PrimaLoft Gold and it’s been produced using the U.S. brand’s new P.U.R.E manufacturing technology.
PrimaLoft P.U.R.E. (Produced Using Reduced Emissions) manufacturing technology is a new development that significantly cuts carbon emissions as compared to conventional production methods for synthetic fills.
It’s actually by nearly 50%. Apparently over 231,075kgs of carbon emissions have been avoided by PrimaLoft’s very creation of this technology.
“90% of PrimaLoft’s synthetics were already coming from recycled materials.”
And yet the product is genuinely still the same – you wouldn’t know the difference. So how have PrimaLoft achieved this? Well, since the 1980s the brand have had to use these huge ovens in order to bond their synthetic fibres together into the sheets of fill – and large quantities of coal and in some cases natural gases have been used to power them. Now, PrimaLoft have managed to cut out the need for these by creating a bonding method simply using air. They’ve essentially managed to alter the the composition of a resin spray, a common additive used alongside the binder fibres, and this now makes the fibres reactive simply to oxygen. So in lieu of ovens, the insulation can simply cure at room temp.
