The creator of technical mountain and lifestyle clothing Lagoped is not a company like any other. The company collects its raw materials recycled. Interview with its co-founder and committed CEO Christophe Cordonnier.

“I became an expert in textiles. It’s an exciting sector that needs to be revalued” enthuses Christophe Cordonnier, co-founder and CEO of Lagoped, creator of lifestyle and technical clothing for the mountains. “We equip mountain instructors and guides, first aiders and doctors from CHUs at altitude, we are partners of the national union of mountain guides in France”, lists the contractor. This mountain DNA mixed with the brand's particularity of using recycled raw materials is perfectly reflected in its slogan “One with Nature”.

With a team of nine people spread between Paris and Annecy, Lagoped takes care of the creation and design part, chooses its recycled materials carefully, then delegates the manufacturing and assembly of the clothes to subcontractors. Created in 2018, the company benefited from a fundraising in June 2023 which allows it to see further. It now wants to develop multi-channel exports, via distributors and online sales, and is aiming to open physical stores in France in 2025.

Existing recycling channels necessary for Lagoped

“I worked in raw materials for a long time as a financial engineer, and I noticed that extraction was extremely expensive, both for companies and the environment. My idea of ​​creating something new with something old comes from there”, confides Christophe Cordonnier.

Lagoped relies on the European textile and recycling industrial sectors. “Recycling sectors have existed for around fifteen years, partly thanks to public orders which enabled the necessary investments. A single factory requires millions of euros! Lagoped would never have been able to launch if these sectors did not exist”, testifies Christophe Cordonnier.

The brand therefore relies on an already existing ecosystem with four recycling sectors, each dedicated to a material: polyester, polyamide, wool and cotton. “The cotton sector is rather Spanish, while it is mainly Italian for polyester, French for wool and Slovenian for polyamide”, completes the entrepreneur.

Raw materials recycled in post-production and post-consumer

Thanks to these existing recycling channels, Lagoped can obtain various materials which are recycled in two ways. Post-production recycling, which consists of recovering offcuts or unusable waste (from weavers, knitters, manufacturers, spinners, etc.) to transform them into cotton and wool yarn, and post-consumer recycling, which makes it possible to manufacture polyester – from plastic bottles, and polyamide – from rugs and carpets.

For Christophe Cordonnier, the ideal in the long term would be to be able to recycle materials into post-consumer textiles, and thus to make new thread with already worn clothes, “even if mechanically, distinguishing wool from cotton, polyester and polyamide is still very complicated. »

Knitting, weaving… the final stages of assembling the final garment

Once the yarn is manufactured at a very low environmental cost, Lagoped sends it to an assembly factory for knitting (mesh) or weaving (warp and weft). “We only talk about 'Made in', but France, for example, has a recognized warp and weft industry in Rhône-Alpes and in the east of its territory”, believes Christophe Cordonnier.

Communication based on real environmental impact

While many brands communicate on this famous mention of Developed for JDE, Christophe Cordonnier highlights the minimal environmental impact of this assembly phase. According to him, Lagoped has – like many companies – a direct environmental impact (scope 1) of less than 0,5%, while its indirect impacts (scope 2 and 3) represent 99,5%. And among these indirect impacts, 90% concern supply and 10% manufacturing. “Today, companies that communicate their environmental commitments do so almost exclusively on their scope 1. At Lagoped, we decided to focus on scope 3”, declares Christophe Cordonnier. “The social impact is also greater during the supply phase, just look at the number of operators needed to make natural organic cotton. »

Lagoped, a precursor of sustainable laws

“We are very ahead because we apply the law on environmental labeling well before it is compulsory. We represent what the textile industry will be like in a few years. » According to its co-founder, Lagoped is the “the only company to apply theFrench Eco Score indicator (which will come into force on the textile market for voluntary traders in the fall of 2024, editor's note), and the first brand to publish the complete traceability of all its products, including its raw materials, a requirement of the AGEC law (Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy). » And the entrepreneur concludes: “If we succeed, it’s not because we are smarter than the others, it’s just that we have different production monitoring. »