A main priority at Oberalp is the health and wellbeing of everyone who makes our products - not just our own employees. We dedicate a lot of effort and resources with the goal to make garment production more fair and equal worldwide.
tells the world how we work as a company and the standards we follow.
Leader status for Salewa, Dynafit, Wild Country & LaMunt
73% of our production volume came from Long-term suppliers (+5 years)
41% Europe
57% Asia
2% Africa & Middle East
We give back to the communities, nature and wildlife where we work and live.
Back in 2013, we chose to partner with the most rigorous labour conditions expert in textiles that we know of: Fair Wear Foundation (FWF). This helps us ensure that we’re always putting the wellbeing of our people first. FWF is an independent, non-profit organization that aims to improve labour conditions in the textile industry. It performs and shares research on workplace-related issues, provides a platform for open exchange of information with other brands and stakeholders, and has available local teams who carry out worker trainings, seminars, and audits. After each factory audit, a corrective action plan (CAP) is made and shared with management, and a timeline for improvements is set and shared with us. Another important part of FWF's work is to help us handle worker complaints.
Partnering with FWF is a big commitment. They don’t just audit our factories – they also verify that we walk our talk through the yearly Brand Performance Check. Through this check, they review our work to see whether we're implementing our code of conduct in an effective way. They assess our internal organization and processes, our approach and handling of the year's main events, worker complaints and audits, and give us a rating in a report which is published on their website. Read the results in our latest Brand Performance Check.
In 2022, Salewa, Wild Country, and Dynafit were awarded the highest distinction, "Leader" status, by FWF for the sixth time in a row. The latest member of the Oberalp Group, LaMunt, a premium mountain sports brand by women for women, also joined as a "Leader" for the second year since it was founded. It’s only given to brands who are “doing exceptionally well and operating at an advanced level” and “showing best-practices on complex issues”. This tells us we’re going in the right direction.
FWF’s requirements get higher every year, and we’re continually being challenged to try harder. It's tough, but that's also what we like about them.
For more information, please read our Social Report.
Where we do not own the factories, we make sure to pick our production partners carefully and to install fruitful and long-term partnerships.
We always look for the best production location, considering technical expertise and knowhow. Many factories with cutting and sewing skills are located in Asia, and we select the partners that follow strict social requirements and collaborate with them to reach even higher standards of working conditions.
In our vegetable garden in Bolzano, we help integrate around 10 young refugees by teaching them the basics of farming. We give them the opportunity to do meaningful work, learn how to cultivate organic fruit and vegetables from professional horticulturists, and get in touch with the locals.
Our employees can also take home the produce on a weekly basis in exchange for a donation to the project. In 2019, we also sourced organic fertilizer for our garden from our recycled down supplier. They use the lower quality down that can no longer be recycled to make 100% natural and organic fertilizer. A way for us to close the loop!
