When we started the Crescent Moon snowshoe company we built the first “batch”  of shoes in our garage, first in Vail, CO, and then moved everything to Boulder, CO.  As we grew (rapidly) those first few years we had the choice of either moving our manufacturing to China – where nearly all our competitors have their shoes made – or, to stay in Boulder and make our products where we could control the components, the quality, and of course, the processes of manufacturing.  This meant we would have higher costs in labor and because of our size, higher costs in virtually every other area too.  But it was important to us to “do it the right” way and at the same time, to establish a unique niche within the category to help distinguish us from the other snowshoe manufacturers, and to compete not necessarily on the basis of price, but on value and quality and design.
By choosing to manufacture our products in the US it meant we could choose our components to be more environmentally friendly than the industry standards and we could choose our processes such as whether or not to recycle our waste or to use wind powered energy and minimize our impact on the city and state and perhaps, even larger, the place we live and sell our products.   We chose to keep it local and by doing so, provide a small number of jobs within our community and be a part of the local manufacturing scene and contracting other similar minded suppliers with whom, over time, we’ve   become good friends.

Our facility,  located in the heart of Boulder, CO , is small and at times, pretty cramped with recycled boxes we use for inventory control and bins of recycled aluminum in our assembly rooms along with crates of waste materials and other recyclables which are stored in the back of our building and then driven to the local recycle centers.   Tamara Laug, co-founder, is primarily responsible for the commitment to re-use and recycle, having grown up in Michigan with a highly motivated “tree-hugger” of a mother who influenced her daughter to respect the environment - she regularly patrols the facility, occasionally relocating an errant beer bottle back into the appropriate recycle bin.  Yes, it’s true, we drink beer most Friday afternoons.  And when it snows, sometimes we go right out the back door with our snowshoes on and tour the path behind the building along Boulder Creek. 

Crescent Moon is not a big company, but we have conscientiously pursued the goal of being a responsible and an environmentally considerate manufacturer.  After all, we’re making outdoor products and it seems somewhat paradoxical to make them without regard to the environment in which they are used.  We’re not perfect either and we haven’t been certified by an independent third party.  But we’ve certainly spent a lot of time and effort researching the components and ingredients within the materials we use so we CAN become certified.   But that has proven to be an allusive goal since the process is very (VERY) expensive and requires full and complete disclosure by our suppliers and vendors, some of whom have proprietary technologies, which is a part of their intellectual property.  Many of them are unwilling to participate in the process which, to date, has proven to be one of the insurmountable flaws in the current certification process.   Consequently, you, our customer, have to trust that we are doing the best we can when we choose the components and the process that we use and make every effort to produce our products in a responsible and environmentally considerate way.   We’ll keep up our diligence to become better and we’re happy to respond to your questions and suggestions, and in the meantime, our efforts to become independently certified as a “green” manufacturer will continue, so stay tuned, we’re getting greener all the time.

Our snowshoes are made with materials that contain NO PVC (polyvinyl chloride). This policy is complementary to our operational process of using 100% wind powered energy in our factory and office and recycling and reusing nearly everything we use, including coated fabric scraps*, aluminum, stainless steel, polyurethane and HDPE parts, cardboard, and office materials.

TAKE ME BACK PROGRAM - Send in your old Crescent Moon Snowshoes that you no longer want. We will disassemble them and recycle the parts for a charge of $12.00. We can recycle the frames, rivets, claws, bindings, and decking (if it is the TGS decking without PVC). If the snowshoes can still be used, please donate them to a school, camp or program that might be able to use them.

If you’d like to come by our facility when you’re in Boulder, CO call us up and if its Friday afternoon, bring some beer – maybe we’ll make some shoes together.

*Snowy River Enterprises snowyriverenterprises.com is doing amazing things with recycling. They recycle tires and our coated fabric scraps and are putting them to good use.