The wool of sheep grown in the north has a softness to it that is completely unique. For example, in Finland, the wool of the most common sheep breed, the Finnsheep, is comparable in softness to merino wool. It is also high-quality and robust, with a beautiful natural sheen.

Furthermore, here in the north, sheep are raised in ethically sustainable conditions without dipping them in chemical solutions to eliminate ectoparasites. Nor is mulesing practiced in Finland. This is a cruel procedure, performed most often on merino sheep, which involves cutting away skin around the sheep’s breech (buttocks) to prevent infestation by fly larvae.

A few years ago, people in Sweden awoke to this peculiar reality. And while there would have been demand for domestic wool, without the infrastructure for collecting and processing it, there was no wool available on an industrial scale.

Most of the wool produced in the country – around 1,000 wool tonnes of it – ended up as waste.

– At the same time, 1,700 tonnes of wool was being imported into Sweden, says Johan Sidenmark, Project Manager in the Future Materials programme area at Axfoundation.

From the Swedish Wool Initiative to Nordic cooperation

In 2020, Axfoundation invited all wool production stakeholders to a joint discussion on rebuilding the wool value chain in a way that would benefit everyone.

This resulted in a new kind of cooperation – the Swedish Wool Initiative. The project established basic conditions for the utilisation of domestic wool. It also led to the adoption of the first Swedish wool standard.

– It has made buying Swedish wool so much easier, Sidenmark says.

Challenges in utilising domestic wool are not limited to Sweden. The same problems also occur in Finland and Denmark.

Hanna Niskanen, owner of Saimaa Wool, a company that produces tweed from Nordic wool, shares her experience regarding the phenomenon.

– If you manage to obtain a certain amount of wool of a specific quality, there is no guarantee that the same quality will be available the following year. When a customer takes a liking to a particular kind of fabric, we’ve sometimes had to tell them that was it, since no similar wool was available anymore, says Hanna.

Several structural shortcomings hinder the efficient utilisation of wool: there are no large processing plants in the north, or a system for collecting and washing wool. There is no standardisation model. These are significant investments, which no small individual operator can afford.

Encouraged by Sweden’s model, Nordic operators launched a cooperation project, the Nordic Wool Initiative, which builds on Sweden’s proven practices. The project is partially funded by Nordic Innovation, an organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Domestic origin as a selling point

One of the companies utilising Finnish wool in their production is Ekta Helsinki. Mikaela Larma, one of the two founders of the knitwear brand, feels there are great challenges in making use of domestic wool.

Wool must go through several intermediaries in Finland before it is spun into yarn. This adds to the risks in knitwear production and increases the price of the final product.

– A more fine-tuned process would increase the use of domestic wool and have a positive effect on the pricing of the products, Larma stresses.

For Ekta, working with locally produced Finnish wool was a clear choice, Larma says. It has not been easy to utilise, though. Ekta’s garments are knitted using a machine that requires yarn suitable for industrial use. That was something nobody manufactured before Ekta was established.

– First, we had to develop a yarn to suit our needs and find a manufacturer for it here, Larma says.

Therefore, Larma welcomes the Nordic Wool Initiative. In addition to an organisation that would take care of the collecting, processing and selling of wool, she also calls for a certification system which would not only standardise the quality of wool but also be a selling point in marketing wool.

– Most customers buy knit sweaters because they look nice. But Finnish wool also has a fantastic story. Certification would make it easier to tell that story and raise awareness. It would also illustrate the price to the consumer – how it is formed, says Larma who obtained the Nordic Swan Ecolabel for Ektas’s products.

New products and markets

More efficient use of wool also creates opportunities for product development and expansion into new market areas.

The highest quality wool is still spun into yarn. Slightly rougher wool, on the other hand, is better suited as padding in coats and as insulation in workwear to replace cotton. Wool is also excellent in acoustic panels, and in Finland, its potential use in oil spill remediation is being explored.

– As an ecological product, wool that is unsuitable for use as yarn has been tested for use in pellet form to enrich soil and in other garden products, Sidenmark says.

To utilise Nordic wool on a larger scale, however, there should be a yarn type suitable for the textile industry, Niskanen points out.

– After that, we can think about what can be done with the wool deemed unsuitable for the textile industry. A new product needs a new market, so this task is different. If some of the wool used by the textile and fashion industry could be replaced by local wool, that would add to its actual use, Niskanen concludes.

*Article updated on 11 December 2025. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Finnsheep wool is not as soft as merino wool. In reality, Finnsheep wool is comparable to merino in softness. However, when it comes to fibre length and fineness, Finnsheep wool differs from merino.