Nuna shook up the car seat industry with its more sustainable materials and avoidance of chemical flame retardants. Here’s our experience using the Nuna Pipa Lite.
Nuna is one of the companies that shook up the car seat industry, showing that it’s possible to make products with more sustainable materials and free of flame retardants. These car seats still comply with federal flammability regulations but do so without resorting to toxic chemicals.
Flame retardants aren’t the only issue in car seats though. Many continue to be made with forever chemicals, i.e., per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Not so with the Nuna Pipa Lite, which LeafScore founder, John, has used for both of his babies.
Here’s why we like Nuna and highly recommend the Nuna Pipa Lite as a more sustainable car seat of choice.
While the Nuna Pipa Lite is one of the best car seats around, it only gets four leaves. This is because of Nuna’s continued lack of transparency over manufacturing processes and some materials. If Nuna ever responds to my many messages, and I like what I hear, this could easily be a 5-leaf car seat.
Nuna Pipa Lite
Highlights: Ultra-light car seat that is Greenguard Gold certified, free of PFAS and chemical flame retardants, available in luxe fabrics including some GOTS cotton, and easy to clip in and out. A fantastic choice for the tiniest babies!
- Easy to use and functional, with several thoughtful features
- Easy to use in many strollers
- Lightweight
- Flame retardant free
- Greenguard gold certified and non-toxic
- Some memory foam
- Many babies will outgrow the Pipa Lite by 12-15 months
- Company is not super transparent or responsive
At a glance:
Weighs: 5.3 lb. (without canopy or insert)
Weight limits: 1.8 to 10 kg (4 to 32 lbs.)
Height limits: less than 81 cm (32 inches) tall
Certifications: Greenguard Gold, REACH, some GOTS and Oeko-Tex components in some builds
FAA certified: Yes, for airline travel when used with the base.
Our Review
Nuna has been making flame-retardant-free car seats since 2019 and its Nuna Pipa Lite is a top choice for a more sustainable infant car seat.
This super light seat is easy to clip in, clip out, and take it all about.
Despite its lightweight design, the Pipa Lite has a heavy-duty shell that stands up in safety tests and will help protect your baby in case of an accident.
The Nuna Pipa Lite comes with a removable, full-coverage UPF 50+ canopy to help protect against harmful sunrays. It’s not clear if this sun protection is from the weave of the fabric or some kind of chemical coverage as Nuna is not transparent about its materials (more on this below).
What’s it made of?
All Nuna car seats are certified Greenguard Gold, meaning they are free of the most egregious chemicals of concern. This includes chemical flame retardants, PFAS, and many synthetic waterproofing chemicals. The car seats are also built to comply with more stringent European REACH standards for hazardous chemicals.
All of the Nuna Pipa Lite car seats are, however, made with Aeroflex™, Tailor Tech™ or other patented memory foam stuffing and various natural and synthetic fabrics for the covers (see below).
Nuna does not use PFAS and other chemical waterproofing materials and its seats adhere to REACH standards which are far more robust than Greenguard Gold.
Why we like Nuna
The Pipa Lite is a really great choice if you’re expecting a smaller baby. Most car seats are designed for infants weighing 7 lb. or more but the Nuna Pipa Lite works for babies 4 lb. and up. This is because Nuna includes a low-birth-weight pillow on the back of the body support that can be used until the baby is big enough to fit snugly without it (around 11 lbs.).
Having had to prop up a tiny newborn in a too-large car seat myself, this kind of feature offers excellent peace of mind and is why I would strongly consider the Nuna Pipa Lite for a second baby.
Though Nuna itself offers little information about fabrics and materials, online product listings suggest that standard builds of the Nuna Pipa are covered with polyester, while the Pipa Lite is covered with GOTS-certified organic cotton with a GOTS jersey cotton infant insert.
If you’re willing to pay a little more, you can get the Pipa Lite LX, which is covered with a merino wool and Tencel lyocell fiber blend and a GOTS-certified organic cotton infant insert. This model weighs a tad more at 5.7 lb. and is suitable for infants from 4 to 32 lb. and up to 32 inches tall (or babies around 18-months-old).
(Weirdly, the specs for the Nuna Pipa Lite in Canada, where I live, state that the car seat is recommended for infants 4-22 lb. only. I’ve asked Nuna for clarification on this too.)
All models of the Pipa Lite appear to have GOTS-certified organic cotton harness covers and crotch covers.
Installation
The base and seat must be installed rear-facing using UAS (Universal Anchorage System) or seat belt (see the manual PDF for installation instructions).
Both the standard Pipa Lite and the Pipa Lite LX connect to the car seat base and all Nuna and select premium strollers. Pipa adaptors are available to attach the Nuna Pipa Lite to some non-Nuna-brand strollers.
The downsides
The Nuna Pipa Lite can be used rear-facing for infants from 4 lbs. to 22 lb. This means you’ll have to size up to a new car seat once your baby is about 12-months-old. This is one of the few downsides to the Nuna Pipa Lite. Car seats that work for the smallest infants and well into toddlerhood are far better for minimizing resource use (and saving money for cash-strapped parents!).
If you’re wary of short-term products, Nuna also makes an adjustable car seat – the Nuna RAVA convertible seat – that works for infants and kids up to 50 lbs. This has a polyester/bamboo blend fabric cover. Nuna also offers the EXEC All-In-One convertible car seat with a polyester cover and merino wool infant insert.
The UPPA Baby, another top choice for sustainable car seat, accommodates babies up to 35 lbs.
Like most car seats, the Nuna Pipa Lite has memory foam cushioning. The foam will off-gas initially and will degrade over time, creating dust laced with chemicals.
The good news is that it is much easier to regularly vacuum the Pipa Lite to remove this dust. My convertible car seat doesn’t easily clip in and out and is incredibly hard to clean and vacuum.
Need to get rid of an old car seat? Target offers car seat trade-in programs (in some states – check here) and gives customers a 20% off coupon for new baby and kid products in-store. Target then recycles the old seats (more than 17 million pounds of plastic so far!) to make new products such as plastic buckets and carpet padding.
What could be better about Nuna
Nuna isn’t very transparent about its materials or manufacturing. I’ve reached out to Nuna several times for comment and have never heard back.
Specifically, while it seems Nuna manufactures its products in China, there’s no indication that its factories adhere to any standards such as BSCI or WRAP.
Nuna makes vague assertions over sustainability on its website but offers nothing of substance. For instance, some copy says that Nuna abides by “the international ISO 14000 family of standards that cover a company’s environmental responsibilities, including the use of alternate fuel sources, such as solar-powered energy, and the treatment of wastewater, as well as the use of recycling programs for plastic waste and packaging.”
It’s unclear from this wording if Nuna:
- Uses solar power in its factories, warehouses, or offices
- Has specific sustainability initiatives around recycling and packaging
- Has anything above basic standards for wastewater treatment.
We’d really love to know what exactly Nuna is doing to safeguard the planet for future generations.
Final thoughts
All in all, the Nuna Pipa Lite is one of the best choices for a car seat. Highlights include:
- No chemical flame retardants or PFAS
- Adherence to REACH standards
- Greenguard Gold certification
- Lightweight, hardworking, and easy to use
- Especially good if you’re expecting a smaller baby.
There’s definitely room for improvement with Nuna, though, and if you’re expecting an average-size baby your most sustainable car seat option is one that you can use for the first few years of your kid’s life.
Nuna Pipa Lite
Highlights: Ultra-light car seat that is Greenguard Gold certified, free of PFAS and chemical flame retardants, available in luxe fabrics including some GOTS cotton, and easy to clip in and out. A fantastic choice for the tiniest babies!