Sonder Bikes
The Alpkit design team on the materials, partnerships and decisions shaping a more responsible product range in 2026 and beyond.
We spend a lot of time thinking about what makes a piece of kit worth making. Not just whether it performs, but what it is made from, how long it will last, and what happens when it reaches the end of its useful life.
The recycled fibre target
By July 2026, 89% of our clothing range will contain recycled fibres. That number is the result of a sustained effort across the design and development team to audit every polyester-based product in the range and ask the same question: does this need to use virgin fibre?
In most cases, the answer is no. Recycled polyester performs comparably to virgin polyester in the applications we need it for, and it carries a significantly lower environmental footprint. The Kelpie Fleece, arriving this spring, is made from 100% recycled polyester. The Motion Trousers, men's and women's, use a recycled polyester and elastane blend that gives four-way stretch and a performance feel. The Terrapin Wetsuit uses a recycled polyester knitted facing paired with smooth skin neoprene.
The target is for all polyester-based products to move to recycled polyester. We are making serious headway. The 89% figure is not an aspiration; it is where the work has already taken us.
RE:DOWN: closing the loop on insulation
From autumn/winter this year, our down jackets, the Fantom and the Filoment, will be filled using RE:DOWN.
RE:DOWN is a recycled down fill that takes post-consumer down from collected duvets, pillows and outdoor products, processes and sterilises it, and returns it to a fill standard suitable for performance outerwear. The result performs to the same specification as virgin down.
Our down has always been sourced to Responsible Down Standard: non-force fed, non-live plucked, fully traceable. That standard matters and we are not moving away from it. RE:DOWN takes the commitment a step further. Because the fill is entirely post-consumer, no new down needs to be produced at all. The environmental footprint is lower, and the animal welfare question is closed at the source rather than managed through certification. For us it is a natural progression, not a course correction.
This is a partnership we intend to grow across the insulation range. It is one of those decisions that, once made, becomes difficult to justify reversing.
Thinking about Yulex
The work we have started on the Silvertip wetsuit for Q3 2027 is exploring the use of a recycled polyester liner made from Yulex. Yulex is a natural rubber derived from guayule, a plant that can be grown without the irrigation demands of conventional rubber sources. Compared to petrochemical neoprene, it carries a substantially lower carbon footprint at the point of manufacture.
The questions we are asking at this stage are practical as well as environmental. Can we match or improve the warmth of the current Silvertip? How does the Yulex liner perform under the compression loading of front crawl? Does it accept printed surface fabrics? These are genuine engineering questions with interesting answers. We are working through them methodically.
The goal is not to swap a material for an environmental reason and accept a performance compromise. The goal is to find the material that is both better and responsible. We think Yulex might be exactly that.
The cable we stopped including
This one is smaller in scale but illustrates the kind of thinking we are trying to apply across the range.
Until recently, most of our electronics came with a short USB-C to USB-A cable in the box. A 5cm cable, grey or black, included with torches, pumps and a range of other products.
We have been transitioning the entire electronics range to USB-C charging, in line with consumer electronics standards and EU requirements from April 2026. As part of that transition, we are stopping to include cables as standard.
The reasoning is straightforward. The UK generates the second-highest average e-waste per capita of any recorded country. Most of our customers already have USB-C cables. Including a new one with every purchase adds to an existing waste problem without providing meaningful value in return. The decision was not difficult once we asked the question clearly. We do not need to add to the pile.
We still have stock of cables at HQ from samples, returns and product testing, available if genuinely needed. But the default is changing.
The direction of travel
None of this is finished work. The 89% figure has 11% left to account for. The RE:DOWN partnership covers two jackets and has a long way to grow. The Yulex research is still running. There will be more decisions like the cable one, where a small default is worth questioning.
What we are confident about is the direction. Every product we develop gives us a chance to ask whether the material is the right one, whether the packaging is proportionate, whether the accessory in the box earns its place. We are getting better at asking those questions earlier, when the answers can still change something.
We design products for people who use that right. The responsible design work is part of the same commitment: making sure the places people walk to are still worth walking to. That is what motivates it.