ECO-FRIENDLY WINTER COATS
AUDVIK HAS BEEN ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS SINCE 1979
Since the brand's creation in 1979, our love for nature has driven us to always do more to protect the environment. Audvik means "quality of life" in an Inuit legend, and we want future generations to also benefit from a high quality of life by allowing them to enjoy the vast playgrounds offered by our beautiful planet.
We are convinced that sustainable development is more than just a trend. At Audvik, we have always paid particular attention to ensuring that our coats are designed ethically, sustainably, and locally. For over forty years, we have demonstrated ingenuity and creativity in reducing our ecological footprint, and we are truly proud to be among the leaders in the eco-responsible winter fashion industry.
56,000 BOTTLES OF WATER, AND THAT'S JUST THE BEGINNING!
56,000 water bottles – that's the number of bottles recycled since our first collection in 2019, which featured a fabric made from 100% recycled materials. We dedicated months of hard work, research, and development to find a recycled fabric that met our quality standards, and we are thrilled to enable you to protect the planet when you purchase one of our coats.
We are proud of the journey we've made since our beginnings to offer eco-responsible products, and this motivates us to raise the bar even higher. For this reason, we challenged ourselves to explore how we could recycle even more bottles in the production of our coats. So, in addition to using a fabric made from 100% recycled materials, we have found a recycled insulation that is now used in all our coats.
LOCAL PRODUCTION
At Audvik, we believe that our employees deserve working conditions and a salary that allows them to live with dignity. By keeping our production in Quebec, we support the local economy and job creation here while promoting the production of eco-responsible and ethical coats. Our employees have access to safe and healthy working conditions as well as a competitive salary.
Keeping our production in our workshop on Chabanel also allows us to reduce our ecological impact. Indeed, since our coats are designed in our workshop, they do not travel from the other side of the planet, which limits greenhouse gases related to transport. Furthermore, as the coats pass directly from the hands of our seamstresses to yours, we are able to reduce intermediaries. Our coats are therefore handled less, and we limit over-packaging.
Certifications
Choosing a certification demonstrates a strong commitment from a company. We analyzed the options available on the market because it was important to us that the chosen certification aligned with our values. We therefore selected Oeko-Tex certification for the fabrics used in manufacturing our coats. In addition to being a guarantee of quality and durability, this certification is concerned with consumer health and respectful of the environment.
Oeko-Tex is an international label awarded to every textile company that meets the Oeko-Tex standard. It was created in the early 1990s to allow for quality control of fabrics and the entire manufacturing process of processed fabrics, while ensuring they are not harmful to consumer health.
This label is granted to textile companies that do not use harmful substances in their manufacturing processes. An Oeko-Tex certified fabric is therefore controlled at every stage of processing and will not contain chemicals harmful to health. By limiting the use of these substances, Oeko-Tex also helps protect the planet.
We are therefore delighted to design durable, eco-responsible, and above all safe coats from fabrics free of harmful substances for the body and the environment.
Our fabrics
All the fabrics used in our Audvik coats are made from recycled plastic bottles. These are transformed into recycled polyester fibers, a high-performance material that gives a second life to existing materials. This approach helps reduce the reliance on fossil resources needed to manufacture virgin polyester, while offering the same performance in terms of durability and resistance.
Bottle collection, sorting & cleaning
Plastic (PET) bottles are collected at recycling centers after use. The bottles are sorted by type and color, then carefully washed to remove labels, caps, and any impurities.
Fiber transformation and manufacturing
The clean bottles are then crushed into small pieces called PET flakes. The flakes are melted down and then transformed into small pellets of recycled polyester.
The pellets are heated and extruded through tiny orifices to create long, very fine filaments. Once cooled, these filaments become textile fibers. Then, the fibers are stretched, strengthened, and spun to form a recycled polyester yarn.
Weaving & fabric finishes
The yarn is then woven or knitted to create a technical fabric that will be used in the manufacture of coats, jackets, or other outdoor apparel.
Finally, the fabric receives various treatments depending on its intended use: water repellency (DWR), wind resistance, stretch, dyeing, or lamination with a waterproof and breathable membrane.
Weather protection, no compromises.
PFAS-free
At Audvik, we believe that a high-performance coat should not come at the expense of the environment. That's why our fabrics are tested without PFAS, a family of chemicals long used in the textile industry to make fabrics water-resistant.
Often called "forever chemicals," PFAS are extremely persistent in the environment. By choosing materials and treatments without added PFAS, we help reduce their use while maintaining a high level of performance.
All our coats feature a PFAS-free durable water-repellent (DWR) treatment, which causes water to bead up on the surface of the fabric rather than penetrating it. This first barrier helps keep the coat dry longer in light rain or snowfall.
Visit us
Our Chabanel workshop is open to the public. You can meet us, try on coats, discuss your needs, and ask questions directly to the people who create them.
1625 Chabanel West, Suite 700
Montreal, QC, Canada, H4N 2S7