New Guest Articles Made from Discarded Textiles

In January 2023, Farris Bad was awarded 250,000 Norwegian kroner from Strawberry's own climate fund to create consumables for hotel operations using the hotel's discarded textiles. Smallmatters in Oslo - a small company focusing on sustainable initiatives for textile product development, has assisted Farris Bad in the process of finding relevant articles that can be replaced. The goal of the project is to utilize discarded textiles for consumables, rather than having them thrown away.

"We continuously work to improve our own environmental profile through responsibility within the company, as well as towards customers and partners. We started this project in March this year, and that we can already now, half a year later, launch our own, more sustainable products made from discarded textiles, is something we are very proud of," says Kristin Mariante, Spa Manager at Farris Bad.

From discarded towels, bed linens, and tablecloths, the hotel has had bags made for hairdryers, bags for clean/dirty cloths in housekeeping, custom-designed packaging for the hotel's signature scrub, toiletry bags for spa kits, and new covers for linen trolleys made from recycled PET bottles.

"As one of the leading spa resorts in Norway, we have generally high energy consumption, which we have wanted to improve with concrete measures, without compromising guest satisfaction. Through simple, small, and important steps, we have now made changes that allow us to use even more sustainable consumables. This is just the beginning, and we have big plans for the future."

Design and development are handled by Smallmatters in Oslo. They have assisted the hotel from the early stages with ideas and prototypes. The production of the products is done at OPT Oslo and AOK in Larvik, who work to develop people through work.

"The textile industry is one of the most polluting in the world, and the production of new textiles accounts for 90 percent of emissions. Farris Bad taking control of its own environmental profile and us being part of this journey is incredibly exciting. We know that even the small things can have significant, positive impacts on the overall picture, and we support initiatives like this," say Line Houge and Janicke Lorange, founders of Smallmatters.

We hope that the project we are doing together with Smallmatters will be an inspiration for others, and we look forward to what's to come.