Minardi PiumeSustainability & Circularity
A complete supply chain for upcycling post-consumer down, all under one roof: from food industry by-product to premium material, all the way to the recycling that closes the loop.
The P.U.R.E.® cycle
Down becomes down again. Post-consumer recycling, filmed on the floor in Lugo.
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01 · Intake
End-of-life items reach the bench: jackets, pillows, duvets, handled one by one.
02 · Opening
The shell is opened by hand: no machine separates fabric from down better than an operator.
03 · Recovery
The down comes out intact: the same material as thirty years ago, and still worth it.
04 · Regeneration
Washing and sorting on the same line as new material: it becomes down again in every respect.
05 · New lot
It leaves as a P.U.R.E.® lot, GRS certified and traced lot by lot.
The circular supply chain
01
Food industry by-product
Down and feather originate as a by-product of the poultry food chain, not as waste.
02
Premium material
Washing, sorting and grading at our plant turn raw material into certified material for bedding, outerwear and fashion.
03
Post-consumer recycling
At end of life, post-consumer down and feather return to our internal recycling department and are regenerated as P.U.R.E.®.
Recycling capacity of over 1,000,000 kg/year — 843,000 kg regenerated in 2025.
P.U.R.E.®
Over 30 years of experience recycling post-consumer down and feather, GRS (Global Recycled Standard) certified.
01
Collection
Post-consumer down products are collected and delivered to our internal recycling department.
02
Sanitisation
Collected material is washed and steam-sterilised at 100 °C for at least 30 minutes: the "end point" set by Regulation (EU) 142/2011, verifiable in the legal text.
03
Sorting
Down and feather are separated and graded by species, size and purity.
04
Regeneration
Sorted material is returned to the supply chain as P.U.R.E.®, GRS certified.
The labels
P.U.R.E.® is graded by fill power, the measure of insulating power. Three levels, so buyers know what they are getting before asking for the datasheet.
Standard Label
The base range of GRS-certified recycled down.
Golden Label
fill power 600+
Platinum Label
fill power 700+
Impact & data
689 kWp
of new photovoltaic capacity commissioned in 2026 for on-site energy self-production, on top of the full revamping of the existing 76.5 kWp array.
Waste → fertiliser
Processing waste is turned into organic fertiliser rather than sent to disposal.
−85% to −97%
lower impact of down vs. synthetic fiber, across all five categories analysed (source: 2019 IDFB industry LCA study).
Sustainability report
In 2025 we prepared our first sustainability report, to the VSME standard. It serves one purpose: to give us a single, verified source for the figures we publish, instead of letting every brochure write its own version. The data on this page comes from it.
The 2025 report is going through approval. It will be published here in full and available to download: we would rather wait for the final document than pre-announce its figures.
Documents
The Life Cycle Assessment of down commissioned by IDFB, available in full. Anyone assessing a supplier should be able to read the source, not only the claim drawn from it.
Animal welfare
Down and feather as a by-product, traced and verified across the whole supply chain.
No live-plucking
No live-plucking anywhere in the supply chain: down and feather come from a by-product of slaughter.
No forced-feeding
Across our RDS- and Downpass-certified range, the standards exclude force-feeding of animals, with third-party verification.
RDS / Downpass
The Responsible Down Standard and Downpass trace animal welfare from farm to finished product.
Independent audits
Compliance with these standards is verified through independent audits carried out by certification bodies, not self-declared.
Company partnership
Our bluesign System Partnership
Covers our company-level commitment on chemicals, resources and production processes. It is not a product certification: no Minardi Piume article is currently bluepass certified.
Our bluesign System Partnership
At Minardi Piume, reducing our impact starts before a product is made. As a bluesign System Partner, we follow the bluesign Criteria to address the chemicals, resources, and processes behind our products. You can learn more about the system at bluesign.com.
Why we chose bluesign
Textile production is complex: it involves many materials, processes and suppliers. We work with bluesign to operate within an established system, designed to bring clarity, consistency and accountability to input management.
How it works
bluesign is an independent system spanning the textile supply chain. It assesses production processes against the bluesign Criteria and supports companies working to improve, from chemical inputs through to finished articles.
What this means for you
Greater confidence that products are made with responsibly managed inputs, with attention to safety, transparency and reduced environmental impact across the supply chain.
Next steps
We continue to expand and strengthen the application of the bluesign system to improve transparency, performance and accountability over the long term.
Areas of impact
Learn more about the system at bluesign.com
Our commitment to transparency
Every claim on this page is anchored to a standard certified by third-party bodies — RDS, Downpass, GRS — or to a document we publish and link here, and no further. Where a figure is not yet verified by a third-party source, we say so explicitly instead of omitting it or rounding it up. Sustainability is a journey: here we describe where we stand, not where we would like to be.
Judge the recycled down for yourself
The quickest way to assess P.U.R.E.® is to have it on your bench: request a sample with the lot datasheet.
Request a P.U.R.E.® sample