At ToyAcademy, we take a critical and fact-based approach to toys. Words like natural, no harmful chemicals, organic, sustainable, plastic-free, and eco-friendly can be confusing. In many cases, there aren’t clear rules as to when a toy can be called eco-friendly or sustainable, so we're constantly learning and refining our communication.
We don’t claim to sell only chemical-free, sustainable, or natural toys. After all, everything in this world is made up of chemical elements and has a chemical formula - so we don’t think it makes much sense to claim that a doll or a ball is chemical-free or contains no harmful substances. Just because a bouncy ball or a swing contains chemicals doesn’t make it any less natural. Nature itself is chemistry, and all chemicals can be harmful in the wrong amounts.
We want to help our customers navigate the jungle of labels out there. Things change over time, so you may still come across toys in our webshop that are described as chemical-free, sustainable, or natural. We’re gradually phasing out those labels as we keep learning and updating our product descriptions - but with more than 8,000 descriptions to review, it's a process that takes a bit of time.
Terms like sustainable and eco-friendly aren’t black and white. They describe the degree to which a product contributes to a better (or worse) planet for future generations.
For example, in some ways materials like wood, cotton, and glass can be more eco-friendly than synthetic materials like plastic. But plastic is much lighter than wood and glass, which makes it cheaper and less carbon-intensive to transport. Plastic is also durable and requires less packaging, and it’s easy and inexpensive to recycle or remould. Some types of plastic are even biodegradable.
Whether our customers choose to buy organic, Co2 neutral wooden toys imported from Thailand or locally made plastic toys which have only been transported a short distance is entirely up to them. Both types of toys can be considered sustainable and eco-friendly, depending on which factors you value most.
We give our customers the option to filter and view toys based on the sustainability criteria that matter most to them. That’s part of our sustainability strategy, which you can read more about here.
There are several official standards and certifications that guarantee specific qualities in toys. If a play food set or a toy truck has a certification such as the Nordic Swan Ecolabel, Ecocert, AllergyCertified, FSC, GOTS, or a similar label, you can be sure that the product specifically meets those strict requirements. We make sure to highlight these labels and certifications in our product descriptions so you can easily spot them when shopping.
Finally, as a certified Danish webshop, we follow all Danish and EU laws and regulations that apply to toy safety and the sale of toys. All our toys are CE marked and comply with both the REACH regulation and EN-71 standards, and in many cases, they meet even stricter safety requirements for both materials, contents, and design.