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© Core Climbing 2022
© Core Climbing 2022
It is more and more common that companies are flying the sustainable flag. Often presenting their product as “Green” or ethically sourced. On the whole, this is commendable and definitely a good thing. However, when you scratch the surface and look beyond the flashy website the reality can at times fall short of the claims. Make do and mend is usually the truly sustainable choice and not purchasing the new heavily marketed “green” product at all.
Reuse or repurpose is very much preferential to recycling in many cases. The real skill or art in sustainable living is learning how to create useful, functional or beautiful things from redundant fabrics or materials. Creating sustainably will invariably take more time, thought and energy. To redesign and reengineer can often be kindest on the environment as well as the pocket.
Katie Varian and Mickie Stainthorpe are the driving forces behind the Eden Rock group of climbing walls. Eden Newcastle is their third centre. With Core Climbing being heavily involved in their latest project, I was lucky enough to get a unique insight into the way the Eden team developed their new centre. Sustainable working is now so embodied in Eden Rock ethos that it has become second nature to them. I wanted to highlight this as it is something worth shining a light on.
In this short interview, Katie explains how they were able to reuse many materials from what was a dance studio, including architectural glass, cables and electrical equipment, insulation, doors and the old wooden floor.
As you enter the reception at Eden Rock you will see into the bouldering wall through a glass screen that runs along the entire length of the cafe area. The glass in this wall was entirely built from the glass from an old office left by the previous tenant. This viewing gallery beautifully separates the climbing from the café, shop and reception areas. From an operational point of view, this is ideal. A chalk-free zone with obvious advantages for sound and temperature control.
Reusing the glass will have saved a small fortune and they were also able to make many other savings by stripping out and reusing existing wiring, insulation and wood. Some of the insulation was used inside the glass wall stud work. However there was a significant quantity left over. This spare insulation was taken over to Eden Carlisle and used to insulate the café floor. The reclaimed wood was turned into a desk. The remainder was given away to an upcycling company to be reused.
Separating and storing all the reclaimed materials on quite a tight construction site was certainly a challenge. However overall this inconvenience was a small sacrifice considering the huge amount of value recovered and significant reduction in the overall environmental impact of the project.
Other aspects of Eden’s sustainable ethos can be seen in their purchasing decisions and their choices on who they worked with on the project. Buying locally from small independents like Pilgrims Coffee has always been part of the Eden offering. On this project Eden have utilised the wide variety of skills that they have within their company with specialist trades being employed from local tradespeople like “Speedy” their general builder a well known Newcastle climber.
The Wall build was done by Simon Wilson’s Staffordshire and Sheffield-based “The Climbing Wall Company”. As always Simon’s team have done a great job. With four main wall areas including two freestanding boulders and the 45 degree Beastmaker board.
Core Climbing supplied the matting, the Kilter board and the Climb Lab equipment. Core Climbing products are built to last and we source as locally as we can. All our carpet is manufactured in Yorkshire and our foam is all UK-made too, being produced just the other side of the Pennines. This keeps the carbon footprint from transportation as low as possible. Our customers can also be confident that our materials are manufactured to the highest safety standards and conform to the stringent UK standards for fire safety.
Core Climbing is the first choice for boulder wall crash matting by the majority of UK climbing wall operators. Our matting system is the most durable on the market and because it is modular it is a fully maintainable system serviced by our installation and in-house production teams.
Wooden holds are the most sustainable option for climbing holds and all the Eden walls use wooden holds in their circuit routes. The majority of these have been hand made by Dan Varian of BeastMaker. Dan, married to Katie, has been involved with Eden Rock from the very start. Dan’s always had strong opinions on sustainability and has lectured on the various merits and issues of different hold materials at the ABC conference.
Dan’s still operating at the cutting edge of both wooden holds and the UK bouldering scene with his recent 8b+ Weeping Arete at Brimham. Eden Newcastle also has many of the more recent CNC symmetrical holds made in the Lakes at Beatmaker HQ. The 45 degree Beatmaker board must be one of the best in the country. Dan has gone the extra mile and many of the holds are embellished with unique designs inspired by local landmarks like the Angel of the North and characters including Ant and Dec.
Eden has invested a decent chunk of their hold budget in Unit thermoformed volumes. Made by Blocz in Germany the volumes are made from recycled materials and are distributed in the UK by the Impact Route Setting.
Mickie heads up the route setting and has always exclusively bought polyester holds for Eden because of their longevity over PU. One or two PU hold sets have been included in the selections and Kilter doesn’t have a PE option for the Kilterboard holds. The majority of the holds at Eden Newcastle are polyester, PE, from Core Climbing, Axis and X-Cult amongst others.
PE is preferable to PU from a longevity point of view. The surface of PE holds are much more durable that PU holds enabling them to be used for many more years than PU holds. Even when PE holds have worn smooth they will feel cooler and the fillers in the composite will still provide a certain amount of friction. In this respect PE is the more sustainable choice especially for holds that are going to be used a lot, like downclimb jugs or easy circuits.
Many companies are giving PU holds a second lease of life by coating them. This is certainly better than sending old holds to landfill. But even coating comes with a carbon footprint with the processing, additional resin and transportation required if not done in house.
At Core, we are often told by route setters that our material is the best PE mix on the market. This is something that Leo Moger worked very hard to develop and it is something that we are very proud of. Ben Meeks, our first customer and City Bloc owner, is still using his original Core holds. These are now over 14 years old and Ben talks about that in this short video here.
A major investment for Katie and Mickie was the Climb Lab cleaning and Air-filtration systems they have installed.
We are really pleased Climb Lab have chosen Core Climbing to represent them in the UK. Climb Lab, from Denmark, are one of the most innovative companies in the climbing scene. They have come up with some outstanding equipment. The machines are making a huge difference to climbing wall operations and air quality. Their current range of equipment includes Jet washing booths and Ultrasonic cleaning equipment, High Volume Low Speed (HVLS) fans for cooling and Electrostatic Chalk Filtration systems
As you would expect from a Scandinavian company everything is very well designed and well thought out. The machines are energy efficient, the Ultrasonic cleaning saves a lot of water and their cleaning fluids are pH neutral and are not harmful to the environment.
Eden Rock has invested in the full cleaning Stations and Chalk filtration systems at their Newcastle and Edinburgh sites. Katie explains why here.
Mickie has found that using the Ultrasonic and Spray booth has reduced the hold cleaning time of a route set from 8 hours to 2 hours 30 minutes. This is a huge time saver reducing labour costs and freeing up staff to do more productive work.
The filters have proved to be a great investment and Eden have received many positive comments from customers. Post covid people are much more aware of air quality and the Climb Lab filters are making a real difference by removing airborne chalk.
If you have got this far, congratulations and many thanks for reading the blog. If you are interested in boulder matting, Climb Lab or anything else please get in touch.
It was as always a real pleasure to work with Mickie and Katie on Eden Newcastle. I found their approach thought provoking and inspiring. Many thanks to Mickie and Katie for their contributions . Thank you Katie for agreeing to the video interview.