• In both Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter ‘25 we have increased the percentage of recycled materials we used across the board, in some cases by up to 30% on the previous comparable season.

• All rainwear made from 2025 onwards is PFAS-free.

• SS25 saw the bestselling introduction of Cold Dye, a new range where style meets sustainability, using low-impact dyeing processes.

• We continue to centralise our production in the EU and wider geographical Europe – with benefits in travel miles and in CSR and environmental standards at suppliers.

• RECYCLISTE, our platform for second-hand clothing, was relaunched in France and extended to Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

• Staff at our HQ and at our Nice store engaged in a range of CSR activities notably with 1% for the Planet partner Wings of the Ocean during the UN Ocean Conference and Trail Runner Foundation at UTCAM.

Our apparel stands out for its considered choice of fabrics, and that’s as much for their eco credentials as look or feel. 2025 saw significant improvements over 2024 across both summer and winter collections. 

THE NEWS THIS YEAR.

Eco-friendly colours.
Spring/Summer 2025 saw us introduce our Cold Dye range. Cold dyeing is a slower, gentler way to add colour to clothing. Instead of boiling fabrics in vats of synthetic dye, our Italian dye house dips each garment in small batches at low temperatures. It saves energy and uses a fraction of the water, and the natural dyes leave nothing toxic behind.

It’s the antithesis of fast fashion: small-scale, low impact, beautifully imperfect. Each piece takes the colour differently, producing soft variations that give depth and texture, and no two garments come out alike. In our search for sustainability, we also found style,and we’re exploring how to expand cold dye next year.
 
Polyester, Polyamide and the problem of Elastane.
As the figures show, we’ve using more recycled fabrics across both collections this year. One recent success story across the cycling clothing industry is that polyester (PES) is now very widely available as fully or partially recycled fabrics. There has always been plentiful post-consumer waste to recycle, including bottles, fish nets and tyres, but the price premium kept demand down. A few years ago, when we were asking for recycled fabrics, it was difficult to find, but now anything from 25 to 40% of our mills’ production is available in a recycled option. It’s a virtuous circle: the more demand there is for recycled fabrics, the more the mills will make.

Café du Cycliste often uses unusual and premium fabrics compared with other brands. Sometimes we can’t get the colours we want in recycled fabrics – which is why our bib shorts might be available in fewer colours than some competitors, who don’t have the same focus on sustainability – but we are increasingly able to order bespoke recycled fabrics where previously we didn’t meet the minimum order quantity. For example, in the 2025 Mona jersey, we were able to specify a specially milled recycled fabric with the stretch capabilities we wanted.

Polyamide (PA), also known as nylon, has less plentiful post-consumer sources to recycle from, and is more difficult to find as a recycled fabric with the stretch qualities we need. Nevertheless, this year we reached the milestone of more than half of the PA we use being recycled. Winter garments make more use of PA (and other hard-to-recycle fabrics), so the percentage of recycled fabrics in Autumn/Winter collections always lags behind Spring/Summer. In Cecile, our winter bib short, we tested more than 10 recycled PA fabrics, but couldn’t find one with the required stretch, warmth and comfort.

Elastane (EA), also known as Lycra, is another story. It’s essential for bib shorts and close-fitting performance clothing, but recycled EA does not exist on the market at any scale. We are always searching for a reliable source, and this will continue into 2026 and beyond.
 
PFAS-free rainwear.
For Autumn/Winter 2025 we switched to a new partner for our rainwear, Pertex. Pertex is one of the most trusted names in technical fabrics and is at the forefront of producing recycled fabrics with advanced capabilities.

Pertex Shield Pro, used in Suzette and Alizée, is made using pre-consumer recycled nylon (PA), and there are no PFAS chemicals in either its waterproof membrane or DWR (durable water-repellent) coating. This means that as of AW25 all our production is now free of PFAS, the ‘forever chemicals’ that contaminate the natural environment and are harmful to health.
 
Upcycled offerings.
In AW25 we produced two upcycled capsule collections. One was with Bernot, an artisan maker in Lithuania, producing musettes and running caps from deadstock wind jackets and other garments from previous collections. The second was Alba, a fleece top using upcycled fabrics from previous years’ off-bike clothing. Alba also used almost 100 metres of a sample roll of green fleece for a 2024 Atelier collection. Sample rolls are used when prototyping garments, often years in advance, and this sample roll did not quite match the colour of the final production, meaning it would otherwise have gone to waste.
 
By reusing unwanted fabrics and garments, we’re eliminating waste and optimising production, showing that ecological production can also be good business.

Our impact stretches all the way back to the companies that supply the raw materials for our fabrics and forward to the courier who delivers to our customer’s door. We’re committed to improving every step of the way. See below for stories from 2025.

THE NEWS THIS YEAR.

European production is up.
EU manufacturing is beneficial as it cuts down on transport miles, and the energy factories use tends to be greener, reducing our carbon footprint down the supply chain. It also means that our production partners are working to some of the strictest environmental and ethical standards – in terms of working conditions and workers’ rights – in the world.

Compared with summer collections, the number of garments and amount of fabric produced in Europe tend to be slightly down because winter clothing demands a wider range of technical fabrics, including waterproofs and insulation, which are manufactured further afield. Although this is unlikely to change, we are committed to increasing our production in Europe and the EU in 2026.

Factory audits.
Every factory we work with has signed up to our internal ethics charter, which we implemented in 2023 as part of our B Corp certification process. This commits them to high standards in areas including anti-corruption measures, health and safety, workers’ rights and wellbeing, the workplace environment and more. Every factory we work with provides us with its CSR documentation, and we review the situation internally, between our CSR and production departments and senior management regularly. 

In 2025 we completed two factory audit visits. This is in part because of a vacancy in the production department for almost half of 2025.

Transport & Logistics.
As a primarily e-commerce business, how we ship our goods has a major impact on our carbon footprint. The ‘last kilometre’ can represent up to 50% of the emissions linked to any given delivery.

Our warehouse and logistics partner, Axal, based in Alsace, north-eastern France, is confirmed by AFNOR, France’s national standards association, as meeting ISO 26000, the highest guidance standards on socially and environmentally aware business issued by the European Union. It produces an annual report on the carbon footprint of its overall e-commerce activities.
 
In 2024, the most recent report available, 606 tons CO2e of its carbon emissions related to e-commerce came from freight (92% of the total carbon footprint). 75% that related to inbound deliveries (i.e. from factories to the warehouse). This is not something that is currently within our scope to monitor or influence, although, as a brand that produces primarily in Europe, our emissions on this score should be less than the overall figure.
 
Of the remaining e-commerce carbon emissions linked to outbound deliveries (i.e. to the end customer), AXAL produces a breakdown of its different carriers and their contributions towards that total. In 2024, DHL was by far the largest emitter – understandable, given that it is the primary carrier for international air freight. However, it is also one of the carriers that has the most stringent targets for reducing that level, and emissions are forecast to drop by more than 50% by 2030. Axal is working with its delivery partners to be more sustainable, for example by choosing services wholly or partially fulfilled by electric vehicles.

We are always trying to look beyond our core activity – apparel and accessory design and production – to gauge and improve our wider impact.

THE NEWS THIS YEAR.

RECYCLISTE is extended.
With a change of platform and no little hard work from our team, we’ve expanded our resale platform from simply serving France to now also being available to customers in Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Circularity comes in many guises but one key element for us has always been for owners of our apparel to get the maximum miles out of our garments. And if that happens to be the second owner, or even the third, then so much the better.

Repairs are on the menu.
Where possible, repairing rather than replacing is always the best policy. While we already provide a repair kit free with a selection of our jackets, and have made it available to buy as well, we’re always searching for additional ways to facilitate extending the life of our products.

That’s why we were delighted to begin discussions with Goodloop in 2025. Established in 2021 in Lyon, Goodloop specialises in repairing technical clothing and textile equipment for outdoor sports. Whether it is a rip, a tear or a broken zip, Goodloop gets treasured pieces of kit ready again for the next big adventure.

Currently this service is only available to our French customers but, as with RECYCLISTE, we hope to extend it to other countries as soon as possible.

Cycling and upcycling.
Repurposing left over fabric, trims or even whole garments is something we’ve been able to do several times over the last few years. It’s never as straightforward as it might seem on the surface but the impact benefits are obvious and certainly worth the additional work that is required.

This year saw a second collaboration with Lithuanian craftsman Bernot, and a capsule collection of upcycled caps and bags which were crafted from past-season products. We also created Alba, a patchwork-style fleece created from end-of-roll and fabric off-cuts.

The other 1%.
Our commitment to 1% for the Planet continues. This year we increased the number of associations or organisations that we are supporting to nine. These are driven by people who are on the front line, getting their hands dirty on a daily basis and fighting to make the changes we all know are necessary. Alongside our financial support, we’ve were delighted to be able to contribute in other ways. 

In May, we hosted the Destination UTCAM conference, giving the Trail Runner Foundation, a 1% partner, a platform to present its eco-friendly vision of the sport so many of us love, while in June, as part of the third UN Ocean Conference that was taking place in Nice, we welcomed our partner Wings of the Ocean on its plastic-cleaning ship, The Kraken, to Nice port.

In September, in partnership with Trail Runner Foundation and with the help of Nice Plogging, we organised a plogging evening along the Nice seafront and in October, we hosted a gravel ride with Protect Our Winters Germany at the Schicke Mütze bike shop in Dusseldorf, as part of POW’s Mobility Month, promoting active travel.

Keep it local.
We are very fortunate to have customers across the globe and a growing community around the world, but we also appreciate the importance of thinking local. In 2025 we expanded a craftsmanship theme around our own apparel, focusing on quality fabrics and premium production methods, and took a closer look at some of the enterprises making special items in and around our home town of Nice.

While we were already familiar with some (for example, Café Indiens has been supplying our Nice store with coffee for almost a decade now), with others it was a real voyage of discovery. We were delighted to learn more about what they do, feature them across our channels and even include some of their products in our own Christmas gift guide.

Store life.
The year saw the opening of two new retail spaces, in Paris and Munich, and we took a proactive approach to limiting, wherever possible, the environmental impact of these locations. 

Working almost entirely locally, we chose to complete the fit out of each store using French or European suppliers, and selected materials carefully after taking into account their environmental credentials. This meant, for example, that the wood used in our furniture was both ethically sourced and certified by both EcoVadis and PEFC while the metal was produced in Europe and, in some cases, contained up to 20% recycled content.