ElephantSkin cooperates with NordShield®
Vienna / Espoo, 20 October 2022 – ElephantSkin, a registered trademark of Susta Sustainable Merchandise Handels GmbH, and Nordic BioTech Group Ltd, marketed as NordShield® are pleased to announce a milestone in joint product development: The world’s very first, washable and re-usable, antimicrobial and free of heavy-metals, personal protective equipment certified work glove.
The recent global health crisis brought the spotlight on a topic that long had been forgotten by the wider public: Hand hygiene. Not only for consumers, especially for manual work, clean hands always have been and still are the first-best measure against cross-contamination. In situations when (proper) hand washing is not possible, single-use gloves became a popular choice for staff; however, their users face a tradeoff between two unfavorable side-effects: Either single-use gloves are discarded after every touchpoint (as their name implies) – then clean work results in a significant amount of plastic waste. Or, comparable to hands that are not washed, gloves that are not changed become the optimal breeding ground for viruses and bacteria.
Dissolving the tradeoff sitting at the intersection of sustainability and hygiene standards, ElephantSkin provides highly innovative gloves that are not only washable and re-usable, but also provide a barrier against viruses and bacteria. In a joint development with NordShield®, the recently developed glove model “ElephantSkin WORK” is a showcase of nature’s potential to offer the best answers to the big questions of our time. The ElephantSkin glove model WORK is knitted out of 79% renewable cellulose fiber and treated with NordShield’s wood-based BioLayr®, a physical yet invisible armor against viruses and bacteria, with enhanced protection on the treated textile.
Kristoffer Ekman, CEO of NordShield® explains the revolutionary technology behind NordShield, “ElephantSkin’s gloves are a perfect application of our product BioLayr® which forms an ultra-thin physical layer on the treated surface, free of heavy metals or quaternary ammonium cations (QUATs), providing a long lasting and enhanced protection. For the production of NordShield® solutions, we utilize side streams of the forest industry to optimize the usage of our valuable Nordic forests. The end product is a sustainable one, thus fully supporting our partners' sustainability goals.”
Raphael Reifeltshammer, CEO of ElephantSkin adds, “We are proud to present our innovative model WORK as a ‘best-of-nature innovation’. In the wide spectrum of textile treatments available, NordShield’s nature-based technology is a unique offer to meet ElephantSkin corporate customers’ demands on hygienic functionality AND sustainability for their employees’ safety equipment. Our customers save a myriad of single-use plastic gloves that are currently filling landfills and oceans around the world.”
About ElephantSkin
Former professional soccer player Raphael Reifeltshammer is the inventor and developer of ElephantSkin gloves. Founded in 2020, the Vienna-based company Susta Sustainable Merchandise Handels GmbH is engaged in the development of innovative and sustainable textiles. Aiming to replace disposable plastic gloves worldwide, the company’s mission is to replace single-use plastic gloves in non-sterile environments with re-usable gloves out of renewable and nature-based raw materials.
For more information, visit www.elephantskin.com
Contact to ElephantSkin:
Raphael Reifeltshammer, Chief Executive Officer, raphael.reifeltshammer(at)susta.at
About Nordshield®
Nordic BioTech Group, branded as NordShield®, is the world-leading innovative biotechnology company in developing new bio-based antimicrobial solutions. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Espoo, Finland, NordShield® is disrupting the field of antimicrobial technology through a durable, wood-based alternative for antimicrobial surface protection utilized across applications and industries. NordShield®, as a commercial technology, was born after more than ten years of researching, developing, testing, verifying, certifying, and patenting. The result is a revolutionary technology with a unique combination of naturality, power and efficacy. This scalable technology enables the strongest protection with the highest innovativeness - a creation as unique and powerful as nature and one that leaves nothing but goodness behind.
For more information, visit www.nordshield.com
Contact to NordShield®:
Kristoffer Ekman, Chief Executive Officer, kristoffer.ekman(at)nordshield.com