Cocoknits Sustainability Commitment

Our Sustainability Pillars of Commitment

Intentionally Designed Products

Sustainable Materials

Transparency

Empower Community

Plans for the Future

Intentional Products

Each Cocoknits product is designed by Julie Weisenberger, the owner and creative-mind behind Cocoknits. She creates new products with the intention of solving a problem and putting something useful and beautiful into the world. Sometimes the inspiration comes from the material, other times it comes from a need. Either way, she always wants to avoid adding to landfills, so we do not come out with new products unless we believe it is high-quality and delightful. Because we are a woman-owned small business we have the ability to not release new products if we feel that is the right thing to do, like we did in 2024.

Sustainable Materials

We do our best to use the most environmentally-friendly materials in our products and packaging. Whenever possible Cocoknits products are made with sustainable and eco-friendly materials, and avoid using traditional petroleum plastics and glue. All of our products are free from formaldehyde and formamide. Many of our products are recyclable or biodegradable (in a commercial facility). All of our packaging is recyclable or reusable.

 
Click on each photo to know more about how we are using it and why

Transparency

Cocoknits products are not all petroleum plastic-free, nor are they all made in the U.S.. We avoid traditional plastic as much as possible and use recycled materials if we can, when we have to use traditional plastics. The products that we make in China are sourced with the help of our long-time partner in China who is an engineer. He helps us fine tune all of the products that Julie dreams up and makes prototypes of. He then helps us find a manufacturer that can make it with the materials we want to use. We would love to manufacture everything in the U.S.A. but unfortunately there is not a domestic infrastructure to work with sustainable materials, especially on the relatively small scale that we do. We have considered manufacturing our packaging or portions of our products in the U.S. and doing the final assembly and kitting here. However that would increase the transportation within our supply chain and ultimately increase the carbon footprint. So in an effort to be environmentally conscious regarding transportation, we make and pack in China then ocean freight (or sometimes air freight) to our warehouse in California.

Community

The individuals that make up the Cocoknits team are each part of the knitting community. We’re passionate about the knitting and making communities in both our personal and professional lives, so we are sincerely focused on keeping these communities thriving. With that in mind we only want to contribute products and patterns that we enjoy and believe add something unique to what is out there.
A big part of sustainability is supporting local communities and small businesses. As a Maker, you are already doing a great job of making some of your own garments and accessories. As a small business we are intentional about who we partner with and support, from distributors and independently owned shops, to the yarn we design knitting patterns with. You can read more about our commitment to independently owned shops in our company statements.

Plans for the Future

There is always room for improvement, and as a small and growing company we are always working on ways to improve. We have a few redesigns in development for products that we would like to use more sustainable materials on. We are in the process of switching our transparent window on packaging to a plastic-free transparent material for all packaging moving forward. We are also looking into more sustainable ways to ship and warehouse.