Babies and sustainability: How Sleepbag.dk accelerated sustainable development

Babies and sustainability – not the perfect match, right?

They grow at rocket speed.

They are not particularly concerned with cleanliness.

And they require astronomical amounts of equipment.

So how do you combine babies and sustainability when you, like Sleepbag.dk, produce high-quality baby equipment but also want to take care of the world these tiny consumers are growing up in?

We set out to find the answer to this when we signed up for the EU-funded project "Growth by Design" in 2018.

A course in sustainable design at Kolding Design School became the launchpad for a new and more sustainable direction for Sleepbag.dk.

Surrounded by the most skilled experts, we delved into how we, as a company, address future resource scarcity.

We knew our desire: To use design-based knowledge to create products that contribute to a better world – without compromising on quality and user experience.

For example, by:

1. limiting the amount of resources used to manufacture new products
2. producing high-quality products that can be passed down
3. recycling materials from end-of-life products.

But how?

We still needed answers to that.

Products that are passed down and meet many of the daily needs of babies

Our mission was already to develop products of such high quality that you only need to invest in them once – even if you have more children.

When baby equipment is of such quality that the second and third child can inherit it from the first, we already halve the amount of resources required to manufacture the product.

At the same time, several of the Sleepbag products are designed so that – combined with accessories – they fulfill more than one need.

This means that you don't need to invest in (and find space for) a footmuff, a carrycot, and an activity mat, but can simply use a Sleepbag as the core product, along with a carry board and play arches that transform it into a lightweight baby carrycot and activity mat.

And from a sustainable perspective: When we limit the number of necessary products, we also save on the amount of the planet's resources needed to manufacture and dispose of them. In this way, we reduce overconsumption when one product fulfills many everyday needs.

Combined with accessories, your Sleepbag fulfills seven everyday functions:

• baby sleeping bag
• footmuff for stroller/jogger
• insulating activity mat (with play arches)
• lightweight and soft carrycot (with carry board)
• UV-protective den UPF 50+ (with play arches and UV cover)
• changing station on the go (with extra sheets)
• babynest (with foam wedges).

Utilizing waste from footmuff production

Where there is trade, there is waste. But with roots in the East Jutland soil and an eye on the future, our focus has always been to minimize waste as much as possible.

For example, we use the remnants from the production of Sleepbag baby sleeping bags to sew the small crinkly sensory toys, Ulle and Walter, which you can hang on the play arches.

In this way, we utilize remnants that would otherwise have been thrown away, thus burdening the environment. On the other hand, as a consumer, you avoid buying a similar product whose creation would have depleted natural resources.

Recycling is the new "throw away"

Sustainability and consideration were therefore not new ideas at Sleepbag's development base in Horsens.

One of our biggest challenges was how to minimize resource consumption and avoid burdening the environment with end-of-life Sleepbag products.

Could we in any way create products that are 100% biodegradable, or where the materials are recycled to produce new Sleepbags?

During the "Sustainable Progress" course, we focused on these questions, for example, with the concept of "Design for Disassembly," meaning that products are designed in such a way that materials can be recycled.

"It was incredibly valuable for us to get an impression of what sustainability is and how sustainability will evolve in the next 10 years. We went up in the helicopter with experts and began to see where we should go with our company and how we should work with customers and products."

Nina Frederiksen, designer and inventor of Sleepbag

When we got stuck, there was always someone to nudge us, challenge us, or push a boundary, so we could move forward. In this way, we constantly moved forward until we had a concrete plan for how to work purposefully with sustainability for the next ten years.

Is sustainable baby equipment even the future?

We know that sustainability can be an abstract concept when choosing products for your little one. There are already a thousand things to consider.

But we believe it is a factor that matters to the consumer – and not least to their small children, who will inherit the world we are collectively shaping right now.

In the same way, for us as manufacturers, sustainable design is not just a hollow sales argument and a feel-good label that we wash our hands in.

We mean it. Because we believe in it.

It makes a difference.

If you want to know more about how Sleepbag.dk works with sustainability, you can find the Danish Business Authority's article here.