EcoPeak - The Ski Revolution

Making better performing skis while minimizing the environmental impact

About 8 years ago, we began diving deep into the idea of using bamboo in ski construction. What started as a lively conversation about future materials quickly grew into a shared passion.

For us, it wasn’t just about sustainability but also – and perhaps even more so – about performance. The challenge of developing the best possible ski fascinated us both: while René focused on optimal performance, Mat’s goal was to make the ski as environmentally friendly as possible. This spirit of experimentation took us through countless prototypes and tests with various bamboo modifications over the years, rewarding us with some great moments of success.

Step by step, we created a product that not only uses cutting-edge material technology but also embodies our shared passion for sport and sustainability in a unique way. From this passion, an innovative ski was born – one that unites performance and responsibility.

Our goal is it now to offer to you this better skiing experience at the lowest cost for the environment and financially within the normal range of premium skis. Now, we need you to kick-start our market entry and realize the production of the first commercial series of the skis.

For this, we dived deeply into the world of sustainable materials science and came up with a hybrid bamboo-wood core technology that can be tuned to the individual needs of every ski and skier type to offer unparalleled running smoothness and long-term dynamic stability.

On top, we packed this core technology into a new ski construction that allows us to take the skis back, recycle them at the end of use and reclaim all utilized materials either to be reused for the production of a new ski or to be composted.

To make this happen, we have invested nearly three years of research into new sustainable material technologies, ski core designs, prototype building and testing as well as circular business model innovation. We worked across three countries with technology transfer institutes, academic institutions and material innovators to finalize a concept that works not only in the lab but also on an industrial scale.

Till today, we have proven our technology in various prototypes of regular, freeride, touring and high-performance race skis. We were able to convince Innosuisse and the Schweizer Berghilfe to support our research with small grants. We have scientifically proven the performance features and conducted a life cycle assessment to validate the reduction of our environmental impact.

The goal of this project is to prove that all you skiers (and snowboarders) out there support sustainable innovation. We want to show all the existing big brands out there that we can do better in terms of performance and the environment. We want your support to be able to produce a first commercial series of at least 20 pairs for the upcoming winter season, and demonstrate that we can make the future of skiing more sustainable.

Be part of a large shift towards a circular economy since our project makes the entire board sport sector substantially more sustainable!

We started this project with the goal to make better skis but ended up tackling technological challenges not only of the entire skiing industry but actually the entire board sport sector:

• How to use more renewable materials?
• How to maximize the recyclability of mixed material products?
• How not to lose performance by implementing sustainable materials?
• How to remain price-competitive with sustainable material innovation?
• How to address the needs of customers for sustainability?
• How to make board sport equipment circular?

Our technological advances provide an answer to all these questions above and serve as best-practice examples for other players in the market to follow our route. By commercializing our technology in the ski sector, we want to be able to provide solutions to other ski manufacturers, snowboard companies as well as other board sport equipment producers.

Therefore, by supporting us, you will become an active driver of towards a more sustainable circular economy within the entire board sports and even other sandwich composite applications (for example for skateboards, surfboards and much more).

We need your backing to kickstart our commercial production and scale our technologies into the entire market.

Our next step is to produce at least 20 pairs of skis for the upcoming winter season.

With our first 20 pairs of skis, we want to create awareness in the market, receive hands-on feedback from the slopes and attract investors and partners that help us bring the technology to an industrial scale.

Through these partnerships and investments our goal is to establish the production of better performing and more sustainable cores for the entire industry as well enable the entire sector to make their products recyclable within a common recycling infrastructure.

We know that’s a bold goal, but through our collaboration with the marketing and communication department of the Hochschule Luzern and our technology partnerships, we have proven that this goal is realistic both economically and technologically.

If you want to be part of this revolution of the skiing and other industries, we will invest your support in particular into:

• Materials and manufacturing of the skis
• Further research and development of the recycling process and infrastructure
• Marketing campaign, customer development and operational sales