Down Already a Circular By-Product of Food Sector; Any Use of Down a Win for Industry and Planet

According to the Materials Market Report 2024 of Textile Exchange, RDS-certified down production is still only 3.3% of total virgin down production. Downpass too is only 1.2%. Why are numbers still that low?
Daniel Uretsky: We have been talking to others in the industry about this and none of us can figure out where this number came from. To us, that seems incredibly low. I imagine they are looking at the number of certified goods (not that was sourced to the RDS but carried forth by the brand level certification) and comparing to ALL use of down including fashion and bedding. Home goods has definitely lagged behind and you don’t see a lot of RDS certified bedding due to the price sensitivity. And massive markets like the China domestic market don’t use any standard as that consumer just doesn’t care. 

I would be interested to look at those numbers through the different industries and back to the sourced material. As an example, 100% of all Allied material is RDS certified at the point of sourcing. It is up to a brand to carry that certification through to the products. This becomes extremely difficult and costly to do, so many of our partners, for example, rely on our TrackMyDown.com tool to communicate the responsible sourcing as well as quality to their customers. Textile Exchange and the auditing bodies have made it so hard, I would agree that the number of certified products (which require brand level certification) is relatively small compared to the amount of down actually sourced under RDS certification. Many brands realise the importance of the RDS when it comes to crisis management, but Textile Exchange has really done nothing to build the standard as a valuable and known entity to the customer. They just want to know that it was sourced responsibly and when they can also see qualitative information on TrackMyDown, that become more of a value. 

Perhaps this explains the seemingly low number. 

The Ukraine War is said to have had a negative bearing on production volumes. Could you give us an idea about how concerning the situation is?
Daniel Uretsky: While geopolitics does play a role in the overall availability and cost of down, this particular situation is just one of many we are faced with. Currently, we are experiencing a global shortage of down which has led to a massive increase in the price. During the pandemic, the price of pork was so low in China that the consumption of duck and goose dropped enough to where it made no sense for many of these farmers to continue to raise large flocks—or any at all. And when probably over 80% of the world’s supply comes from China, what happens in China is by far the biggest factor. We also saw massive increases and growth in the China, Japan and Korean domestic markets which put high demand in a lowered supply. Again, as a by-product, supply is independent of the demand and solely related to the consumption of duck and goose. 

Ducks and geese abound everywhere. But why is it that most production is still from China and Europe? India too hardly figures anywhere. Why?
Daniel Uretsky: As I mentioned, it is estimated that over 80% of the world’s supply of down comes from China. This solely has to do with down as a by-product of the food industry, where the most duck and goose are consumed. This is why you see most down from China, Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe and France (though the great majority of the French birds are raised for foie gras so uncertifiable) and not from other textile-heavy regions like India. We have also found that in a lot of countries that might have duck and goose supply chains that are small or growing, there are numerous quality and animal welfare concerns we are not comfortable with sourcing from. 

Why is the down sector so far away from any kind of circularity? The MMR 2024 also says that the market share of recycled down is only 1%. Those are abysmal figures. Comments, please.
Daniel Uretsky: Down is already a circular by-product of the food industry; so, I never understood this question. We are literally taking waste from a slaughterhouse floor and processing into an extremely low impact insulation. I know it has to do with the lack of information available about down. When I came to Allied, I was shocked there was never an industry marketing arm like wool, cotton and other natural ingredients have. The down industry just wanted to hide and allowed for decades of marketing against it by the synthetics industry. With all the benefits of down, it is still shocking that people think there is a “more sustainable” solution—particularly one that comes from a synthetic. A recent LCA finally showed what we all knew. Down has 85–97% lower impact over all categories! That isn’t even close. And with the sourcing practices and traceability offered by producers like Allied, the sustainable solutions are clear. 

This also clearly comes from brands’ misunderstanding of what circularity actually is at a global scale—it’s not just about recycling your own products. And not always is it the case that a “recycled” option is the best one. Again, it is misinformation and lazy sourcing by brands and marketing teams to rely on these buzzwords to increase their consumer perception of their sustainability practices. I look forward to the coming regulations and already see the effect as brands increasingly look more at the natural materials. 

And as for recycled down, as I mentioned in length above, it is NOT more “sustainable” than conventional down. It also does not have the same quality as it comes mostly from post-consumer bedding. While it is a great solution for the right product, the material will always have a different composition due to this and this can cause a different feel than the luxe conventional down we all know. It is also not available in the highest fill powers and is far more inconsistent from season to season. Again, for the right products, it will work, but a move to recycled down generally results in a different (“lower” for technical products) quality fill at a higher environmental impact — and with no traceability for animal welfare. Some brands (like the discussion above) just don’t care about the reality and value the “recycled” and “circular” buzzwords. 

Coming to your company, how has the Renu:Trace programme been working? Could you share some details, especially how it works at the ground level?
Daniel Uretsky: One of the biggest hurdles brands will have that use recycled down is the lack of traceability for animal welfare. Due to the post-consumer nature of the material, it has been impossible to trace to origin. As of now, the animal welfare activists are looking the other way on this, but I’m sure that won’t always be the case. For Allied, we have been providing a unique level of traceability for years—long before the RDS. Working with our large partner base, we have started programmes taking their RDS certified jackets that are already at their end of life and tracking them back through our database so when we recycle that material, it can be traced back to the certifications. 

It’s the building of the first recycled down traceable for animal welfare. 

Please tell us about your hydrophobic down.
Daniel Uretsky: It is true that there is a need for down to perform better under extreme conditions. Down has an enormously wide range of warmth — meaning that, regardless of the plastics industry marketing — it is a lot more difficult to overheat than with a synthetic alternative. The thought behind hydrophobic down was that we could utilise this warmth and compressibility in products facing far more extreme use cases. 

But I have always been suspicious of taking such a low impact material and coating it with a chemical. 

We’ve been working for years on a more precise understanding of the problem and developing a targeted solution to that did not include a chemical intensive solution. Working with FUZE Biotech, we realised we could achieve a completely chemical-free solution for the moisture management needed inside an insulation chamber. This is what led us to our ExpeDRY product being taken up and quickly replacing hydrophobic chemistry in many of our partner brands. 

The ExpeDRY uses microparticles from recycled gold to actively keep the insulation chamber dry. The gold creates a small charge that weakens the hydrogen bond of water. So, in real world scenarios, we see it performing better than the best hydrophobic down at 1–5% of the impact in processing. And when a jacket that utilises this can dry 50% faster in laundry, through the life of the product, we are saving a significant amount of energy and creating a scenario where the product will less likely be wet when put away which leads to a longer lasting product. We are increasing performance now while simultaneously reducing the overall carbon footprint of a down product. This is the type of innovation we are focusing on now. It makes no sense to us to add nominal gains at a huge environmental expense. 

Which standard do you adhere to? What is the reason for you to follow that?
Daniel Uretsky: From the beginning, Allied was created as an insulation brand and not just another bedding company selling down. This allowed us from outset to think and work differently within the down supply. We establish relationships with farms and work directly with them and abattoir groups—we do not work with middlemen and aggregators so prevalent within our industry. With our history of responsible sourcing and traceability, it was obvious for us to work with our partner, The North Face, to build the Responsible Down Standard and gift it to Textile Exchange in 2014. Hundred percent of our supply chain is certified to the RDS, but we also help develop brand specific sourcing standards and initiatives. 

We also only use the standard as a foundation and always do our own audits and seek to always go above and beyond the current standards. We are always looking for ways to do better… even if it is only a by-product. However, we can help; we will.