About Our Sustainability Ratings and Process
Here’s how we cut through the noise and offer data-driven sustainability ratings for every product we cover
Table of contents
For those seeking outdoor gear with the smallest footprint, welcome to your sustainability home. We all know the dilemma: You want to shop responsibly, but real information about sustainability is scarce. Some brands don’t provide clear product labeling—if at all—while others market their sustainability efforts without the detail consumers deserve. Much of the available information is difficult to interpret without the expertise to break it down. One of our core missions at Better Trail is to provide thoughtfully researched, data-driven, and digestible sustainability information for our readers, so that you can find outdoor gear that aligns with your values.
Our Sustainability Ratings
This journey began with the notion that outdoor enthusiasts deserve real sustainability information to help them make informed decisions, which didn’t exist before Better Trail. As a site that covers outdoor gear, we felt strongly that every product on the site deserved an independent sustainability analysis.
To bring this to life, we hired a team of sustainability experts, all with college degrees or higher in related fields related, and they began by developing a unique set of criteria for each product category. These criteria cover both the product itself (such as whether it has recycled materials or PFAS) and the brand (whether it tracks its carbon footprint or publishes an annual impact report). To provide a concrete example, down jackets as a category have 10 total sustainability criteria, against which all models are evaluated.
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Longevity
Choosing durable outdoor gear and keeping it in use for longer is one of the best ways to reduce environmental impact. Our proprietary longevity rating assesses factors like overall build quality, materials, fabric denier, component durability, and real-world performance. A green check indicates that we expect the product to be long-lasting relative to its peers, a yellow check mark indicates average longevity, and a red X indicates a product that may have a limited lifespan.
PFAS-Free DWR
Durable water-repellent (DWR) finishes can contain PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). These highly persistent “forever chemicals” are used in outdoor gear for their strong resistance to water, oil, and heat, but are linked to environmental contamination and a range of health concerns. A green check mark indicates the product uses a PFAS-free DWR, while a red X means the DWR contains PFAS.
PFAS-Free Waterproof Membrane
The membranes used in waterproof products such as rain jackets, ski jackets, and shoes can contain PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). These highly persistent “forever chemicals” are valued for their resistance to water, oil, and heat, but are linked to environmental contamination and a range of health concerns. A green check mark indicates the product’s waterproof membrane is PFAS-free, while a red X means it contains PFAS.
Recycled Materials
Recycled materials are prevalent in outdoor gear, with nylon, polyester, wool, and down among the most common, but the composition varies widely. A green check mark indicates the product is made with a substantial amount of recycled materials (100% recycled or the core fabric that makes up most of the product is recycled), a yellow check means it contains a moderate to small amount of recycled materials, while a red X means there are no recycled materials in the product.
Bluesign Approved
Bluesign Technologies, based in Switzerland, operates a third-party textile management system that ensures materials are manufactured to strict environmental, chemical, and worker safety standards. A green check mark indicates a product is either a Bluesign Product (contains at least 90% Bluesign-approved fabrics and 20-30% Bluesign-approved accessories) or features a significant amount of Bluesign-approved materials. A yellow check mark means it uses some Bluesign-approved materials but less than the aforementioned category, and a red X means there are no Bluesign-approved materials in the product.
Responsible Manufacturing
This criterion evaluates a brand’s commitment to fair wages, safe working conditions, and reducing environmental impact through certifications and programs like Fair Trade Certified, Fair Wear Foundation, Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP), and the Fair Labor Association, while also recognizing brands that manufacture primarily in the U.S. or Europe under strict labor and environmental regulations. A green check mark indicates a brand meets our responsible manufacturing criteria, while a red X means it does not.
Recycled and/or Reduced Packaging
Packaging can add significant waste to outdoor gear purchases, so many brands work to reduce its impact by using recycled materials, incorporating Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper products, and minimizing plastic and paper use. A green check mark indicates a brand uses recycled or reduced materials across all of its packaging, a yellow check indicates moderate or limited use of recycled or reduced packaging, and a red X indicates the brand does not make either of these efforts.
Repair Services
Repair services extend the lifespan of outdoor gear and reduce overall consumption, though programs vary widely. Some brands offer comprehensive repairs for a range of issues, while others provide limited or no repair support. A green check mark indicates a robust repair program, a yellow check mark indicates limited repair services, and a red X indicates the brand does not offer repair services.
Resale and/or Recycling Services
Resale and recycling programs help keep outdoor gear in circulation longer and out of landfills, ranging from trade-in resale platforms that offer store credit to take-back initiatives that recycle products at the end of their usable life. A green check mark indicates a brand offers both resale and recycling programs, a yellow check mark indicates it offers one of the two, and a red X indicates it offers neither.
Carbon Footprint Tracking
This criterion evaluates whether a brand measures, reports, and works to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions using established frameworks such as the Higg Index, Greenhouse Gas Protocol, or The Change Climate Project. A green check mark indicates a brand publicly reports greenhouse gas emissions data, sets clearly defined reduction targets, and uses established tracking frameworks such as Higg or The Change Climate Project. A yellow check mark indicates the brand tracks emissions and outlines reduction goals but provides limited data, lacks science-based verification, or does not clearly report progress. A red X indicates the brand does not appear to track greenhouse gas emissions or provides so little information that its efforts cannot be verified.
Annual Impact Report
Annual impact reports provide transparency and accountability by outlining a brand’s sustainability efforts across areas such as material sourcing, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, water use, supply chains, and packaging. A green check mark indicates a brand publishes a detailed, brand-specific impact report that closely aligns with our sustainability criteria and leaves little room for ambiguity. A yellow check indicates a brand provides some relevant sustainability reporting but lacks detail in key areas or is covered only briefly within a parent company report. A red X indicates a brand does not regularly publish an impact report.
Our team of sustainability experts then sets out to exhaustively research each and every product. For a new category, this process takes weeks of reviewing product listings and brand sites, analyzing third-party certifications, and reaching out to companies for clarifications when needed (we dive deeper into this process below). At the end, each product is independently scored across all of our criteria. A green check mark represents our highest score; a yellow check mark means the criterion is met but at a lower level than green; and a red X means the criterion is not met.
At the end of this research process, we take these carefully researched results for each criterion, plug them into our proprietary ratings formula for that category, and assign a sustainability rating from 0 to 5. As with any great ratings system, it should be hard to earn a great score.
Better Trail Certified
Better Trail Certified is the sustainability standard for outdoor gear, and is given to products that score 4 or higher out of 5 in our ratings. These products often meet the vast majority of our criteria for that category, and the bar is high. Just over one-quarter of the products we’ve analyzed receive Better Trail Certified status.
For readers, Better Trail Certified gives you a high level of confidence that a product is among the most sustainable relative to its peers. No product is 100% sustainable in the sense that each requires materials for production, generates some carbon emissions, has to be shipped, etc., but these products have the lowest impact on the market, as backed up by the extensive research detailed above.
Where Is This Information Presented?
Our Gear Guides and Reviews
Every product in our gear guides includes a dedicated sustainability section with the overall rating and an overview of how the product performs for each criterion. The same is true for our in-depth gear reviews. As you research gear and browse the site, this provides an excellent introduction to the impact of each product.
Sustainability Reports
For the sake of transparency and to highlight the depth of our work, certain products have detailed sustainability reports, like the Patagonia Down Sweater here. These reports offer an even more in-depth version of the preview boxes mentioned above, and it’s fun to dive deep on all of the criteria and how that product and brand stack up.
Our Sustainability Index (Coming Soon)
To make it easy to search for and find sustainable products and brands, in 2026 we are officially launching our Sustainability Index. Here you can sort by activity and product category to see a list of products with their ratings, or get a look at how brands stack up as a whole. In the brand tables, you can see the aggregate sustainability score, total number of products analyzed, and click through to a final table with every product from that brand that we’ve evaluated.
And More…
We have a lot more sustainability content on Better Trail, and it’s constantly growing. You can find detailed articles about our criteria. We have close to a dozen of those topical deep dives, plus a growing number of newsy articles on new tech and other interesting topics. And we have much more in the hopper as we grow the largest collection of sustainability content on the internet.
Our Sustainability Team
We often get asked: “How on earth did you gather all of this information?”
Our content is built by a talented group of sustainability experts, each of whom holds a degree in a relevant field, such as sustainability studies, conservation biology, environmental sciences, materials science, and more. These individuals are passionate about the environment and can successfully communicate complex scientific concepts in clear, accessible language. With the expertise to identify greenwashing and navigate the subtle nuances of dense documents like annual impact reports, they are the backbone of our operation.
And let’s be honest: In an era where AI bots are scraping the dregs of the internet and making finding real, trustworthy information difficult, Better Trail is a breath of fresh air. We are experts—and real humans—doing the hard work of fact-finding, fact-checking, and diving deep on complex topics to provide the most authentic and accurate information possible.
About Our Research Process
We Start With Publicly Available Information
For a given product category, we start with a deep dive into publicly available information for each product and brand. This includes product listings on brand and retailer websites, sustainability pages, and annual impact reports. During this process, we spend many hours breaking down and understanding the technical language, data, and certifications. Whenever possible, our findings are then cross-checked with trusted third-party organizations like Bluesign, Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), and the Outdoor Industry Association.
Direct Communication With Brands
Even after reviewing publicly available information, we’re often left with unanswered questions. As a next step, we often reach out to brands directly for clarification or more context. In many cases, brands have been responsive and helpful, leading to greater accuracy on our end (and, at times, even updates or corrections on brand websites). That said, a number of brands have not responded to our questions or requests for clarification. In those situations, we operate on the information available to us until we hear otherwise.
Importantly, we offer brands the opportunity to submit information via our sustainability contact form. This can include clarifications, corrections, and additional context that is not provided on their website. We take this communication seriously, and if the information provided to us checks out, we will promptly update our site to reflect it.
We Love Third-Party Certifications and Data
While future goals are important—and transitioning to more sustainable manufacturing and products takes time—too many brands rely on long-term promises without showing meaningful progress today. Our sustainability content is about what is happening right now, highlighting the current steps that brands are taking today, not just promises for tomorrow.
We love real numbers and third-party certifications, as these are the best tools we have for accountability, consistency, and detecting greenwashing. Examples of third-party certifications include Bluesign-approved materials, Fair Trade Certified products, and responsibly sourced materials certified to standards such as the Responsible Down Standard, Responsible Wool Standard, and others. And nothing gets us more excited than seeing the data itself. When a brand can provide the actual percentage of recycled materials in a certain product or share a timetable showing how it has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions over time, we can rest assured that the brand is actually walking the walk. This level of transparency gives us confidence that the brand is following through on its commitments and allows us to provide the most accurate and informative sustainability information.
How Our Sustainability Ratings Might Evolve
Outdoor gear and sustainability are changing landscapes, and our rating system is designed to evolve alongside them. Better Trail is less than two years old, but we are already in the fourth iteration of our ratings (V4, as we call it internally).
To provide a little context, the first version of our ratings used a binary yes-or-no framework for each sustainability criterion. For example, a product either had recycled materials or it didn’t (we didn’t have the yellow checkmarks at that point). But as the number of categories we covered expanded along with our knowledge and experience, we realized that we could improve upon this and level up the accuracy of our ratings.
In reality, most of our sustainability criteria exist on a spectrum. For example, a product can be made from 100% recycled materials (rare, but it happens), it can contain a majority of recycled materials, it can include only trace amounts (like a zipper or a small minority of fabric), or it can have none. We now score each product on a scale like that for each criterion, and our ratings are more accurate as a result.
In addition, our ratings are designed to evolve alongside the outdoor industry. As brands improve transparency—such as publishing more detailed supply chain data, emissions reporting, and material sourcing information—we constantly update our criteria and our brand information to reflect these changes.
Last but not least, we want to raise the bar. What is possible now, and what is Better Trail Certified now, should and will change. Just a couple of years ago, PFAS was still ever-present in outdoor gear, and by 2026, it's mostly gone. We expect brands to improve and adopt new technologies when possible, and you can find that information here when they do.
Make Better Trail Your Sustainability Home
It’s all right here, under one roof. You can use our Sustainability Index to search for the most environmentally friendly gear and brands, dive deep on specific topics, and read about the latest tech. Many readers use Better Trail Certified as the stamp of approval for choosing a piece of gear that aligns with their values.
As always, please feel free to reach out to our sustainability team with questions or comments, and we look forward to this journey with you all.
Better data. Better gear. Better planet.
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