Your cart is empty.
We want to improve the wellbeing of our local rural community by locally designing and manufacturing the best performing, most comfortable and most durable socks money can buy. But we can’t claim to be making a positive difference to our community unless we commit to environmental sustainability as well.
Environmental Sustainability
Designing durability as well as comfort into everything we make is one important way we can make a difference. If we succeed, our customers will choose to wear better socks and buy less – reducing the volume of textiles that go to landfill.
Choosing Merino wool as the foundation for our product range is also vital. Wool is an incredibly high-performance fibre - breathable, moisture wicking, thermoregulating, odour resistant, completely renewable and biodegradable.
We haven’t yet figured out a way to make a comfortable, durable, and high-performance sock without the use of some petrochemical based fibres like nylon and elastane which really bugs us. But we do try and minimise the use of non-renewables, sourcing recycled or renewable alternatives wherever we can. We continue to actively explore renewable options with our suppliers and hope that one day we can make a high-performance sock out of 100% renewable materials.
We’ve recently redesigned our packaging to minimise the use of plastic and switched to environmentally friendly FSC certified card.
The same approach applies to our factory. We work hard to minimise energy and water use and recycle as much of our waste as we can. We have our own water bore, use renewable electricity (which mostly comes from the wind farms on the Tararua ranges down the road) rather than gas or diesel to fire our boiler, and all waste water is treated in the local treatment plant. But we know there is more to do.
Community Sustainability
As the largest employer in Norsewood, we take our responsibility to the local community very seriously. We aim to provide stable local employment opportunities, a happy, inclusive working environment and ongoing learning, because that’s one way we can make a positive difference to the community.
We also support several local organisations, and help our staff support them too. For example, our staff in the local Volunteer Fire Brigade get paid when they are called out during work hours.
Since 2023, we have donated over 3,000 pairs of socks and 500 pairs of Merino undergarments to local community groups.
We are excited by how much more we can contribute to the local community and to regional New Zealand as our customers support us to continue to grow.