Sustainability

Planetary boundaries & sustainability

It is obvious: we have only one planet to live on, a planet that, unfortunately, we have not taken particularly good care of. There are limits to what the Earth can tolerate!

 

But where are these boundaries?

It is not entirely easy to know, but Johan Rockström at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and his team have developed a system that enables us to understand and measure where these boundaries lie. The research group has identified nine important areas, and the boundary values for each area are shown in the model below.

The model is built with circles divided into nine sections, like a pie chart. Each section of the pie represents an area and the planet's boundaries for that area.

 

Green areas: The problem is not serious enough for us to have exceeded a boundary for what the planet can tolerate. The boundary itself is called a planetary boundary. 

Where the colour is yellow, orange, or red, we have exceeded the boundaries. Some parts of the circle have no colour because researchers have not yet managed to find enough data to calculate and complete the chart.

Since we have exceeded the boundary for biogeochemical flows, it is important that we do everything we can not to make things worse, but instead try to improve them. That is why we decided to make cleaning more environmentally friendly and develop cleaning products and tools that do not harm you or nature and do not move us closer to crossing a planetary boundary.

THE IMPORTANCE OF USING CIRCULAR RAW MATERIALS

In a circular economy, things are used for as long as possible.
When they break, they are repaired, turned into something else, or recycled.

COMPARISON OF VIRGIN RAW MATERIALS

In the example below, you can first see a comparison of producing one kilogram of palm oil and one kilogram of rapeseed oil. As you can see, palm oil produces 10 kg of CO2 per kilogram, while rapeseed oil produces 2 kg of CO2 per kilogram. However, most of the CO2 emissions from both oils come from the cultivation itself, that is, from obtaining the raw material. The choice of raw material therefore matters, but for both oils, the majority of CO2 emissions comes from production.

Västerbottenssåpa is a circular product. It is made from rapeseed oil that has already been used once, purified, and saponified into soap. This means that we do not use any new oil raw material for our soap, but instead reuse rapeseed oil that has already been produced. Consequently, no virgin fat raw material is produced on our behalf, so we have excluded that part from the soap chart. The other emissions required during production are included under saponification and packaging.

Producing soap also causes emissions, although they are very small. We use electricity, transportation, and packaging as sustainably and climate-smartly as we can.
We are constantly working to reduce our footprint. For example, we have replaced some of our bottles with POP—Prevented Ocean Plastic, plastic collected from beaches to prevent it from ending up in the ocean. We are working to replace all plastic with POP.

The calculations were made with the help of: sustainability.alpla.com,
carboncloud.com, miljofordon.se, climatehero.me, postnord.se. We work
constantly working to update figures and make more accurate calculations.
We continuously work to update the calculations to make them as accurate as possible. 

We would also like to thank Inlandets teknikpark and Heligfjäll Ekosystems’ sustainability consultant for Circular Business Models for reviewing our calculations. 

 

Västerbottenssåpa - eco-friendly cleaning products

Västerbottenssåpa is made in Vilhelmina, Sweden, from recycled rapeseed oil according to an original recipe from 1926. It harms neither you nor nature and recycles used oil from selected restaurants—oil that would otherwise have ended up as waste.

• By using our natural and easily biodegradable soap, you reduce the amount of harmful chemicals in your home.

• By reusing the spray bottle and refilling it with our small refill pouches, you reduce plastic use.
  
  
• 45% of all global emissions come from the way people produce new raw materials. By choosing Västerbottenssåpa, a reused product, you contribute to the transition to a circular economy and reduced emissions. Thank you for being part of the climate transition. 

 

 

Sara, her husband Magnus, and son Albert helped with the beach cleanup at Callao, Surf Beach in Arguineguin, Gran Canaria, Spain, in November 2022, organized by Oceans4Life. 11 plastic garbage bags were collected and sent for recycling.

The refill bottles are made of POP, Prevented Ocean Plastic, recycled plastic collected from beaches around the world. The plastic is collected within a 50 km radius of the coast or waterways that flow into the ocean. The POP program prevents over 1,000 tons of plastic from reaching the ocean every month and provides durable, high-quality recycled plastic. 

Producing recycled plastic emits 5 times less carbon dioxide than “virgin plastic,” and the POP program also prevents it from ending up in the ocean.

 

Discover our cleaning product collection 

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