Who We Are

What we do

We produce a simple range of affordable yoga equipment, we produce our products with the environment in mind. We believe that you need very little to do yoga; our props are there as tools to support the practice. We use minimal packaging, which reduces both our costs and negative environmental impact. It also ensures that we focus on the quality of the product itself. 

 

Social Sustainability

From April 2020, all our cotton goods will move from OCS certified organic to GOTS certified organic. GOTS certification can only be achieved if specific social criteria are met; it ensures everyone who works on our products is paid fairly and works in a safe environment.

Our staff policy in the UK is to pay the real living wage + 15% as a minimum. Warehouse operating hours are within school hours to accommodate working parents.

As of October this year, we are partnered with Yoga Stops Traffick, an organisation that funds both rescue and safe-housing for victims of human trafficking in Mysore, India.

 

Environmental Sustainability

We have an ambitious deadline, to only provide biodegradable yoga mats or yoga mats made from recycled materials by 2022.

We already use zero plastic-packaging on our yoga mats, bricks and blocks. All cotton goods will move from plastic to paper packaging by May 2020.

 

 

Our Ethos & Mission

We want to make an impact on the industry that yoga has become. First and foremost, we have to operate as a business to do this so that we can deliver excellent products at great prices to our customers. From here, we aim to make a significant, positive impact on the environment. By 'operate as a business', I mean to be professional in all we do. From the level of service, you experience, to the product itself. We will deliver.

The yoga industry is a contradiction where the environment is concerned. As individuals, yoga practitioners are thoughtful consumers - that is part and parcel of our yoga practice. However, when you look at the bulk of the products on the market, there are very few that are genuinely environmentally friendly. The vast majority of mats are made from virgin plastic. The word 'plastic' is never used, but this is the material we practice on. The most popular pro mat in the world - made from virgin plastic. The UK's most popular sticky mats - made from virgin plastic.

There are natural alternatives, such as jute, rubber, cork. But the cost is often prohibitive or the lifespan very short, especially for a new teacher or studio on a shoe-string. PVC, when used well and produced cleanly, can be a beautifully comfortable and non-toxic surface to practice on. It is closed-cell and can be kept clean. It lasts forever, and it is cheap. For this reason, the majority of teachers I speak to ultimately end up using our high-quality PVC mats in their studios. Knowing all of this and having managed a yoga studio, I would make the same decision.

It is my belief that the industry needs to provide consumers with a better option. That is my ambition and is what Ekotex Yoga strives to achieve. We at least, want to try! In the meantime, we do the little things. We only use organic cotton. We use PER (poly-environmental-resin) over PVC. I ask our manufacturers to stop wrapping our products in plastic, we use recyclable tapes, we reuse cardboard boxes and we print on recycled paper. Our warehouse uses LED lighting and our only waste output onsite is recyclable. We will get there. All we ask for is your custom! In return, you will receive high-quality, colourful yoga products and our gratitude.

Our Story

Ekotex Yoga began in July 2017 when I was six months pregnant with our son. We saw Ekotex as a way for me to continue doing what I love while working flexibly with our child. I have this in common with many of our clients, yoga teachers and studio owners who work around their children. Nothing felt more natural to me than working together as a family to build our life together.

So, three weeks before Tom was born, we leapt into the unknown, and Ekotex Yoga sprung into existence.

Prior to Ekotex Yoga, I had spent two years managing The Yoga Shop (a company that had supplied equipment throughout the UK for over 15 years). The owner decided to close this company in October 2017, so we now continue to serve The Yoga Shop customers (mainly teachers and studios) with high-quality equipment. In my time at the yoga shop, I learnt a great deal and had already started developing the Ekotex brand. The idea being, we use organic materials where possible and focus on 'touch' and 'quality' and use simple designs to reduce distraction. So, in some respects, my journey with Ekotex began a long time ago - with the development of the Bump Mat and the re-design of our bolsters, cushions, blankets and props.

We hit the ground running following our 'soft' launch, and continue to supply high quantities of our products to studios, teachers and yoga practitioners. We are small, therefore easy to contact. Our business is very much part of our family, so we care very much about our reliability and level of service.