Responsible Down - Application of RDS Certification

At present, although many outdoor brands are working hard to develop lightweight synthetic cotton products with good warmth retention, and looking for substitutes for down, it is undeniable that down is still the product with the best warmth-to-weight ratio on the market, especially in outdoor environments in winter.

Down used in outdoor products, including a large number of down sleeping bags, down jackets, shoes, gloves and other products, comes from the feathers of poultry raised in captivity for the production of foie gras. It is a by-product of the foie gras manufacturing industry, which is mainly concentrated in Eastern Europe. For decades, farms that mechanically force-feed ducks to obtain livers for food have been criticized by animal protectionists. This barbaric farming practice has been illegal in California since 2012 and has been banned for several years in Türkiye and several European countries.

Earlier, The North Face announced that by the fall of 2017, all of the brand's down products will use 100% down certified by the Responsible Down Standard (RDS). To achieve this goal, The North Face has taken a step-by-step approach, with 30% of its down products in the fall of 2015 and 60% in the fall of 2016. In addition, among the brand's down products in the fall of 2015, its Summit Series and all European models will be the first to use RDS certified down.

In addition to this RDS certification, Patagonia, another outdoor brand committed to environmentally friendly production, has also launched a similar standard - 100% traceable down, and announced that all new down products launched this fall will have traceable down labels. The so-called traceability means that Patagonia's supply chain is certified by a third-party authority to ensure that there is no live down extraction or forced feeding in the production process of down products; suppliers of down raw materials must be independently reviewed and meet Patagonia's procurement standards before cooperation can be achieved.