What is Down RDS?

2017-08-31

Recently, many peers have asked Xiaojin, what is RDS? How is the price calculated? Down testing agencies, etc., we will continue to update the dry down products that you want to know, please pay attention to China Down WeChat!

The RDS Responsible Down Standard is led by TextileExchange, a global non-profit organization that has been committed to the sustainable development of clothing and textiles. It aims to record animal welfare information and ensure the traceability of down products. .

Many brands have joined RDS

TextileExchange (TextileExchange), a global non-profit organization that has been committed to the sustainable development of clothing and textiles, announced that the responsible down standard RDS led by them is currently gaining widespread attention in the outdoor and even casual fashion industries. Outside the brand The North Face, Marmot, Mammut, Helly Hansen, Outdoor Research, Eddie Bauer and H&M and others have committed to fulfilling this standard, and many other fashion and bedding brands have also actively joined.

The Responsible Down Standard (RDS) was released by the outdoor brand The North Face Joint Control Union Certification (Control Union Certifications) and the Textile Exchange at the end of 2013. It aims to record animal welfare information and ensure the traceability of down products. standard.

Then at the Salt Lake City Winter Outdoor Show at the beginning of this year, The North Face announced that it would completely transfer RDS to the Textile Exchange to speed up the promotion in the whole industry.

After the standard is handed over to the Textile Exchange, the latter will have full rights to promote and update it in the most appropriate way, not limited to a certain brand, but the entire supply chain of down products.

“Our goal in making the ‘Responsible Down Standard’ available to the public is to provide an overall more responsible standard for any organization looking to source down,” said Adam Mott, Senior Manager Sustainability at The North Face. The collective sharing of standards can actively promote the improvement of animal welfare and the traceability of the down supply chain on a larger scale, which is far beyond our own strength.

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

The down used in outdoor products, including a large number of down sleeping bags, down jackets, shoes, gloves and other products, many come from the feathers of poultry animals raised in captivity for the manufacture of foie gras, which is a by-product of the foie gras manufacturing industry. concentrated in Eastern Europe.

Farms that mechanically and brutally cram ducks for livers to serve as dinner have been slammed by animal rights activists for decades. This brutal farming practice has been outlawed in California since 2012 and banned in Turkey and several European countries for several years.

Earlier, The North Face announced that by the autumn of 2017, all down products of the brand will use 100% down certified by the "Responsible Down Standard" (Responsible Down Standard, hereinafter referred to as RDS).

In order to achieve this goal, The North Face adopts a gradual approach. In the autumn of 2015, the down products will use 30% certified down, and in the autumn of 2016, the proportion will increase to 60%. In addition, among the brand's 2015 autumn down products, its extreme down series Summit Series and all European models will be the first to use RDS certified down.

In addition to this RDS, another outdoor brand in the outdoor circle, Patagonia, which is committed to environmentally friendly production, has also introduced a similar standard - 100% traceable down, and announced that all new down products launched this autumn will have traceable down labels.

The so-called traceability means that Patagonia's supply chain has been certified by a third-party authority to ensure that there is no live down 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 they can be produced. reached a cooperation.