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Green: Environmental factors
How are fitness equipment and product manufacturers managing sustainability, and helping clients do the same? Julie Cramer asks key suppliers
Sustainability is embedded in our operations, guided by our core values of performance, learning and kindness. We focus on developing durable, long-lasting products while minimising environmental impact through conscious material choices.
Through our partnership with Ovako (a leader in low-carbon steel production), the steel used in our barbells has an 80 per cent lower carbon footprint than the global average. We also implement circular design principles to extend product life and reduce waste. In delivery, we prioritise sustainable packaging and minimise air freight to lower transportation emissions. Our commitment spans every stage — from material sourcing to final delivery — ensuring we continuously reduce our carbon footprint and collaborate with partners who share our sustainability vision.
We design our products with durability, longevity and circularity and these truly sustainable products should last for generations, reducing the need for frequent replacements. Our Prestera Strength System embodies this philosophy – its modular, customisable and scalable design ensures long-lasting performance and safety. By eliminating non-essential components, we reduce material use and minimise waste without compromising quality or the lifting experience.
Operators benefit by investing in high-quality, long-lasting equipment that requires less maintenance and replacement, lowering their environmental footprint while enhancing financial sustainability.
Our focus on subtraction over addition ensures every product is optimised for function and longevity, supporting operators in creating sustainable, efficient and responsible training environments.
We’re committed to continuous innovation to meet the highest sustainability standards. We’re streamlining our product range to reduce complexity and resource consumption, and aiming to widely adopt low-carbon steel and expand our sustainability initiatives across product design, sourcing and delivery.
Our fundamental focus remains on producing durable, long-lasting equipment while reducing emissions and material usage.
more: www.eleiko.com
Sustainability for us isn’t about ticking boxes, it’s about building smart, future-ready solutions into gym design and operation. That means selecting equipment that not only performs at the highest level, but also contributes meaningfully to energy efficiency, carbon reduction and long-term environmental goals.
As an ISO 14001 accredited organisation, we take our commitment to sustainability very seriously. To maintain this accreditation, we have a clear and concise environmental policy for the business as a whole. This is assessed annually, with a recertification audit every three years. Our policy is designed to highlight potential environmental impacts and ways to mitigate them. This includes auditing suppliers on their sustainability and encouraging those we work with to attain their ISO 14001 certification.
The clearest example is our partnership with Energym, a UK-based engineering company developing clean energy-generating fitness equipment. This allows operators to transform human power into low carbon electricity, while creating a facility that’s good for the planet.
Energym bikes connect to an on-site energy storage system so the power created by pedalling is fed directly into the building. This represents a tangible opportunity to reduce energy costs while making a meaningful contribution to carbon reduction. Manufactured in part using recycled polymers, bikes can be traded in at the end of their lifecycle, refurbished, and redistributed.
We’re also the only official UK and European distributor of patented DC Blocks, which are stackable weightlifting blocks made from 100 per cent recycled plastics.
Their multi-purpose design makes them suitable for use in a wide variety of training exercises, negating the need for other, less environmentally-friendly equipment.
It starts with our in-house operations. We already operate from an energy-efficient building with high-performance insulation. We’ve also invested in electric forklifts and reach trucks, and all our vans meet the highest European emission standards. Continually working on targets to reduce waste and carbon emissions and increase recycling by splitting all waste, we strive to source new, more sustainable products to help gyms become more eco-friendly.
more: www.aperformance.co.uk
Sustainability is built into every stage of our Evergreen product range. We’ve reimagined manufacturing by replacing iron with a durable, high-performing composite made from locally recycled, end-of-life materials. These are processed at our UK manufacturing centre in Cambridgeshire using a cold, low-emission method, eliminating the need for fossil fuels. Evergreen plates are made from 85 per cent recycled materials.
Localising operations significantly reduces the carbon footprint associated with global shipping, shortening fulfilment times and boosting the UK economy by creating jobs.
We also manufacture our Octagon Frames and soft-touch consumables locally. Our logistics model ensures minimal environmental impact while maintaining quality and speed. This end-to-end sustainable approach helps operators reduce their own emissions and demonstrate progress in their environmental initiatives.
Our Evergreen range is a major leap towards sustainable fitness, reducing reliance on carbon intensive materials and long distance shipping.
For example, the Eco Disc – our first Evergreen product – is produced in the UK from recycled waste that would otherwise go to landfill. It matches the performance of traditional iron-based equipment but has a fraction of the environmental impact.
Operators benefit directly – less carbon from supply chains, faster fulfilment and a clear sustainability story to tell their members. This allows operators to hit sustainability goals without compromising performance.
We’re transitioning away from fossil fuel-reliant manufacturing and materials.
This year we’re expanding our Grip Disc and Eco Rep Set ranges to include a performance Bumper Plate made from 85 per cent recycled, end-of-life materials.
Longer term, we’ll replace oil-based polyurethane with plant-based alternatives, further enhancing the environmental profile of our products.
We want eco-conscious equipment to be the standard – not the exception. By bringing manufacturing back to the UK and investing in sustainable innovation, we’re creating products that are good for business, better for the planet.
We believe every lift, squat or press should support a cleaner, greener future.
more: www.escapefitness.com
We champion sustainability through UK-based manufacturing and local supply chains, supporting local people and businesses. Our production facility prioritises energy efficiency and we exclusively source our energy from renewables.
Our robust ESG strategy stands up to scrutiny and is externally-audited by the Global Reporting Institute, and includes a pathway to reducing GHG emissions in meaningful ways. You can’t just plant a few trees and offset, there needs to be carbon reduction.
We’ll be releasing our full ESG report and strategy in 2025 after two years’ work capturing data.
UK-manufactured products help enhance sustainability by default. Flooring is a good example where awareness will assist operators in making sustainable decisions.
Most gym flooring is produced outside the UK from recycled rubber, which can sometimes contain contaminants. Just because a material is recycled doesn’t always make it environmentally-friendly.
By contrast, the vast majority of IndigoFitness Flooring is LEED, Floorscore, and BREEAM-certified, ensuring high environmental standards. Operators should demand to know exactly where products are sourced from and suppliers should be transparent.
We maintain high levels of compliance to ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 50001 which support sustainability claims we make through external auditing.
To set ambitious yet attainable targets and achieve net zero. We’ve set out these targets in our ESG strategy.
As an MOD-contracted supplier where high levels of compliance are expected, we’re already assessed within the top one per cent for ESG and top five per cent for environmental compared with other defence suppliers of similar size.
Evidence and accountability are key, not just empty gestures. To produce and supply more sustainable products it’s necessary to benchmark using data. We started this process in 2023 so we could capture our GHG data then set reduction targets. In 2024 we commissioned a peer review against 10 competitors for ESG, and have already established we’re in a strong position. As an industry we have to stop trading on price and move to affordable value which promotes a good relationship between sustainability and ESG.
more: www.indigofitness.com
Sustainability for us is about questioning the norm. We always ask: “We know how it’s done today, but what if we looked at it through a sustainability lens? What alternatives haven’t been explored yet?” That applies to everything – raw materials, packaging and processes. It’s easy to stay on autopilot, but we actively switch that off and push for better solutions.
Operationally, it’s the same mindset. Sustainability isn’t a marketing exercise – it has to be genuine. That’s how we achieved beyond net-zero certification. We worked with scientists to measure, offset and manage our footprint as we grew and now it’s an ongoing process, but one we’re fully committed to.
We’re always scouting for alternative materials, challenging our vendors, and sharing what we’ve learned – especially how we offset our own carbon footprint – to help operators seeking to do the same. On the product side, we focus on reuse and longevity. Take plyo boxes, for example – we’ve put plans in place to help customers recycle and reuse them rather than discard them.
Wherever possible, we make products last longer, even if it means lower margins for us. It’s simply the right thing to do for both the customer and the environment. That said, metals and rubber – key materials in our industry – pose challenges, but we keep pushing our vendors to explore better options. Sustainability isn’t about perfection; it’s about making continuous progress and helping operators take meaningful steps in the right direction.
We’re focused on using fully recycled compounds, especially for high-use materials and reducing travel miles wherever possible.
Every product iteration is an opportunity to improve – whether that’s more sustainable packaging, less packaging or smarter designs, such as switching moulds to reduce ink use. It’s about making every detail count.
The drive is always to find better, smarter solutions. But real progress takes collective effort. If we, as an industry, don’t keep asking the right questions and prioritising genuine solutions, we won’t move fast enough to tackle climate change. Our ambition is simple, keep pushing for better and take operators along with us.
more: www.strongerwellness.com
