Teko
Background
Jim Heiden, founder of Teko, has over 35 years of Outdoor Industry experience in marketing, product development, and company management. His experience and knowledge made him certain that making high performance outdoor products didn't have to leave a heavy ecological impact.
Using only quality fibers, sound manufacturing processes, and recycled materials for packaging, Jim wanted to ensure that his products are safe for the environment. With that, TekoT was born.
Every fiber Teko selects must meet the criteria of achieving the highest level of performance as well as leaving minimal impact on the Earth.
Jim Heiden is still an active mountain biker, trail runner, cross country ski racer, backcountry skier, and mountaineer.
Walking the Talk
The Teko Challenge
Teko is committed to creating high-performance socks that leave minimum impact on the great outdoors. Wear these socks for a year, and if at anytime you are not 100% delighted with the performance of your Teko socks, return them for a new pair or refund.
Renewable Energy
Teko recognizes that our #1 contributor to green house gases in the atmosphere is the way the electricity we use gets produced. So we've purchased enough wind energy credits to ensure that 100% of the electricity we use in manufacturing and operations get put back into the energy grid from clean, sustainable American Wind. Visit www.renewablechoice.com to learn more about how you can offset your electricity use, too.
Leave No Trace
Leave No Trace is a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and inspiring responsible outdoor recreation through education, research and partnerships. Leave No Trace builds awareness, appreciation and respect for our wildlands.
Principles of Leave No Trace:
- Plan Ahead and Prepare
- Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
- Dispose of Waste Properly
- Leave What You Find
- Minimize Campfire Impacts
- Respect Wildlife
- Be Considerate of Other Visitors
Teko strives to embrace the Leave No Trace principles and to extend them throughout all of our manufacturing and operational practices. For more information, visit www.ltr.org.
Minimal Packaging
Reduce, recycle, reuse - We strive in minimizing the amount of packaging needed for our products.
For our packaging, we use chipboard, which is a unique product made from recycled materials. In a previous life, chipboard may have been a cardboard box, newspaper, paper bags or any other general paper product. Our packaging is 100% recyclable
Made in the USA
We feel that it is very important to support the manufacturing base in the United States. We feel that by keeping our manufacturing in the US, our products will be of better quality, and we can ensure shorter turnarounds on our orders.
Our factory in Mount Airy, North Carolina, recycles all the cardboard used for our packaging. They also use a very low amount of water in our washing process, whereas most factories use water intensive paddle tubs. Further, they understand the importance of ecological manufacturing and constantly working towards improving their methods and developing new methods which will better suit the environment.
