Norrøna, the Norwegian outdoor brand known for durable, premium outerwear, is partnering with Australian materials company Uluu to develop a new kind of performance fiber made mostly from seaweed. The partnership supports Norrøna’s long-term Responsibility Roadmap, which sets ambitious goals for carbon reduction, biodiversity protection, waste elimination and responsible material sourcing. To meet these goals, the brand is evaluating new raw materials designed for circularity, natural biodegradability and a smaller lifecycle footprint.
While most plant-based plastic alternatives are made exclusively from land crops, Uluu is one of the first to make a plastic alternative using seaweed. Together, the two brands are exploring the potential of seaweed-derived polymers as an alternative to fossil-based synthetics, advancing research into regenerative raw materials for the future of outdoor apparel. Their goal is to develop fibers and fabrics tough enough for the outdoors and one day use them in Norrøna products. The work runs parallel to Norrøna’s support of Bellona’s efforts to restore Arctic kelp ecosystems impacted by sea urchin overgrazing along Norway’s northern coast.
“Building the next generation of outdoor materials requires brands to get involved before every question has been answered,” says Jørgen Jørgensen, CEO and fourth-generation owner of Norrøna. “For nearly a century, Norrøna has developed products around the demands of the outdoors. We are now bringing that experience upstream, helping shape the fiber itself around what outdoor performance requires.”
Norrøna’s Responsibility Roadmap 2029 includes 10 goals the brand is striving to reach by its 100-year anniversary in 2029. Among them, the brand aims to source 100% of its ingredients from third-party certified responsible sources, including GRS certified recycled, GOTS certified organically grown cotton and new generation bio-based materials, and to continuously work towards eliminating plastic waste from its products and supplies. The brand currently uses GRS certified recycled polyester and nylon across its collections, has offered repairs on its products since 1929, and designs its gear to stay in use for years. Bringing a bio-based material with seaweed to life, and shaping it from the earliest stages of development, marks a natural next step in that work.
Unlike synthetic material that can shed tiny fibers during wear and washing that stay in the environment for a long time, Uluu’s material is designed to biodegrade passing TUV marine and home biodegradable tests. The process starts with a low-impact raw material, since seaweed is harvested without farmland, minimum freshwater or fertilizer. Uluu’s process works much like a brewery, fermenting sugars from the seaweed in saltwater to create a natural material that can then be made into fiber. Uluu and Norrøna have already spun fiber using seaweed-derived Uluu PHA as a core ingredient. From here, Norrøna will test the material for durability and performance attributes working with one of their key suppliers. It’s familiar territory for the brand, which developed Europe’s first GORE-TEX jacket prototype in 1977 and has spent decades bringing new innovations into outdoor clothing.
“Norrøna is built around helping people experience nature, so reducing our impact on it has to be part of how we innovate,” says Brad Boren, Director of Innovation and Sustainability at Norrøna. “Our role is to put this material through its paces and feed what we learn directly back into its development. By bringing our performance requirements into the process early, we can help shape a new material around the demands of outdoor use and contribute to a broader shift in how our industry makes fabric.”
“Nature already knows how to build high-performance materials,” says Dr. Julia Reisser, co-CEO and co-founder of Uluu. “We’re harnessing that biology to transform seaweed into natural, plastic-like materials. It opens up a new way of thinking about what seaweed can become.”
Working with Uluu is the latest example of Norrøna’s holistic approach to responsibility. Since 2024, the brand has partnered with the Bellona Foundation on the Center for Marine Restoration in Lofoten, which is working to bring back Northern Norway’s kelp forests after years of heavy overgrazing by sea urchins. By supporting both efforts, Norrøna is helping restore the ocean ecosystems it depends on while rethinking what outdoor apparel can be made from.
The collaboration with Norrøna marks Uluu’s first development within textiles. Norrøna plans to share the journey as it unfolds, with the hope of helping the textile industry one day create low- or zero-carbon materials whose fibers can biodegrade in the ocean or soil.
About Norrøna: Norrøna is a fourth-generation, family-owned Norwegian outdoor brand founded in 1929 and led by Jørgen Jørgensen, the founder’s great-grandson. Headquartered at Norrøna House in Oslo, its mission is to create the world’s greatest outdoor products and offer unique guided adventures around the world. Its design philosophy, Loaded Minimalism, creates clean products containing all critical technical details and functions. www.norrona.com
About Uluu: Founded in 2021 by Dr. Julia Reisser and Michael Kingsbury, Uluu is an Australian materials company producing a natural alternative to plastic from farmed seaweed. Its proprietary saltwater fermentation process converts seaweed sugars into PHAs, a family of natural polymers that perform like plastic and are reusable, recyclable, compostable and biodegradable in soil and marine environments. PHAs can be processed using existing plastic manufacturing equipment, making adoption more practical for brands and manufacturers. Uluu partners with leading brands across apparel, beauty and automotive, including Boardriders,
Papinelle, Norrøna, Audi and other non-disclosed programs. Uluu has raised more than US$20 million from investors including Main Sequence, Burda Principal Investments, Possible Ventures and Novel Investments, and was named a 2026 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer after winning the 2025 SXSW Innovation Award for Sustainability. www.uluu.com.au
