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Study on the Sustainability of the bYo Yoga Mat
How sustainable is our bYo yoga mat? This is a question that has played a crucial role for us from the very beginning. That was reason enough for us to have our 100% cork yoga mat tested in detail. We were very proud of the results regarding its carbon footprint. But let’s start from the beginning.
We come across the word “sustainability” every day, as it plays an increasingly important role in the media, politics, and advertising. It’s no wonder: environmental awareness is evolving from an individual lifestyle choice into a social movement. It’s no surprise, then, that companies label their products as “sustainable”—even if that might not actually be the case.
As we delved into the topic of yoga mats, it quickly became clear to us how little sustainability is embedded in the yoga scene. We were actually even more negatively surprised by how often mats are touted as “sustainable” when, in reality, they aren’t. That was reason enough for us to take a closer look. How sustainable is our bYo yoga mat? We wanted to know exactly, so we commissioned a scientific study to determine the carbon footprint of our yoga mat compared to other products.
What makes cork unique is that it is not the wood of the trees that is used, but exclusively the bark.
The bark is harvested for the first time after about 25 years, and then at regular intervals every 8–9 years.1 Various studies estimate that for every ton of harvested cork, 70 tons of CO₂ are sequestered from the atmosphere.2 Another study, UAB 2011, estimates a significantly lower figure—18 kg of CO₂ sequestered per kg of harvested cork—but this still results in a clearly negative CO₂ balance.3
In conclusion, this study finds that the figure from the UAB study is overestimated by a factor of 3.6 to 4.5.4
We agree with this reasoning in order to obtain the most meaningful result possible. For example, we must take land use into account, which means that the area occupied by the cork oak forest could also be used for other purposes. Ultimately, however, the fact remains that harvesting cork oak results in up to three times more CO₂ being sequestered than if the bark were not harvested.
It's not just the material that matters
So, first we have the results based solely on the material itself. However, there are many other factors to consider, such as energy consumption during production, transportation routes, packaging, and much more. Our figures take these factors into account, leading to some interesting results.
The Importance of Origin
The vast majority of global production comes from China and is transported by sea. However, due to the immense cargo capacity of container ships, the relative amount of CO₂ per kilogram of cargo is comparatively low, even though the total CO₂ emissions from a container ship are enormous.
Transport routes
How should we weigh the high total emissions against the low emissions per kilogram of product? It’s difficult to find the right approach here, but when comparing different modes of transport, we used the one with the supposedly lower cost per kg of freight (this means that we ranked products from Asia as relatively cheaper in the comparison, even though, in our opinion, the lower cost per kg of freight isn’t necessarily an indication that sea transport is sustainable).
The bYo yoga mat is sustainably and carefully manufactured in Portugal. This is ideal because the natural material is processed right where it is harvested. The short transport distances further enhance the quality of the product.
bYo is carbon negative!
With a value of -4.93 kgCO₂, wearecarbon negative. To explain: a product is considered carbon neutral when the amount of emissions released into the atmosphere equals the amount of CO₂ emissions removed from the atmosphere. The impact is neutral, zero. The so-called “carbon negative” goes one step further: a product is “carbon negative” when the amount of emissions removed from the atmosphere is greater than the amount of emissions released into the atmosphere. The latter applies to our bYo yoga mat.
This result reaffirms our commitment to developing sports products that are environmentally friendly.
1 https://kork.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Von_der_Korkeiche_zum_Kork.pdf
2 https://co2neg.com/power-of-cork
3 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22813756/
Additional references
International Energy Agency. 2008. "CO₂ Emissions from Fuel Combustion" ISSN 1683-4291.
http://lysander.sourceoecd.org.libproxy-wb.imf.org/vl=1376909/cl=15/nw=1/rpsv/statistic/s26_about.htm?jnlissn=16834291
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2006. "2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories."
http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/index.html