North Sails launches beachwear collection to help regenerate coral reefs

Sailing lifestyle brand North Sails has launched a capsule beachwear collection in partnership with Coral Gardeners – a third collaboration between the two - to help regenerate the world’s dying coral reefs.

Buying into the collection gives customers the opportunity to “adopt a coral”, with 20% of net sales going directly to Coral Gardeners to support its goal of planting one million corals by 2025.

The North Sails x Coral Gardeners collection is made from organically cultivated and lower carbon emission materials, featuring shorts and swimsuits made from recycled polyamide that has been salvaged from manufacturing offcuts, hats and tote bags made from 100% naturally cultivated cotton, and kaftans and sarongs made from 100% recycled polyester.

Mădălina Preda, Chief Sustainability Officer at North Sails, said. “North Sails is committed to give back to the ocean, and we are constantly taking action to become truly Ocean Positive. The goal is to repair and not just maintain – now is the time to protect and regenerate our seas.

“This is why we work closely with Coral Gardeners – to make sure we play a significant part in advancing climate adaptation solutions and building resilience for coral reefs. At North Sails, we support the global goal to protect at least 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030, and all the biodiversity that depends on healthy seas.”

As part of North Sails continued work with Coral Gardeners, it has built and fostered two coral nurseries which act as “gene banks” to provide invaluable evidence on the most effective coral species to garden. This helps in growing genetically diverse, climate resilient coral that will eventually bring abundance and biodiversity back to the natural reef. Coral from its nurseries have a survival rate of 93.5%.

Titouan Bernicot, Founder and CEO of Coral Gardeners, commented: “North Sails is the only organisation who believed in our vision early on, and whose key values align with ours. From 2021 to 2022, we doubled the number of corals we planted, from 15,000 to 31,000.

“If this is any indication of where our organisation is headed, partnerships like the one with North Sails have officially set us on course to achieve our goal of planting one million corals by 2025. Our mission is to save the reefs until they no longer need us and the support from North Sails and this collection is paramount to scaling up and future-proofing our work.”

North Sails has been chosen to showcase at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 8 June 2023, as part of their UN World Ocean Day installation - to highlight brands committed to ocean conservation.