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Jul 08, 2026Rab is best known for its technical mountaineering apparel, but the U.K.-based brand is also making impressive progress toward reducing its environmental impact through using low-impact materials, reducing its carbon footprint, and collecting used down products for recycling into new jackets. While Rab has yet to launch a resale platform for used products, it repairs and washes thousands of products each year, helping keep them in play for longer. Curious to learn more about sustainability at Rab? We break it down below.
This sustainability analysis evaluates both product- and brand-level initiatives to capture the full scope of Rab's efforts to reduce its environmental impact. Our research draws from Rab’s published sustainability data, third-party certifications (a cornerstone of our process), and correspondence with brand representatives. We have independently researched 11 Rab products to date, giving us a broad understanding of the brand’s use of low-impact materials, chemistry, and manufacturing practices.
You can explore our analyses of other outdoor brands, or use our advanced search to find products that align with your sustainability values.
Rab earns an “Excellent” rating for its transparency surrounding sustainability initiatives. Its product-level sustainability information is among the most comprehensive in the outdoor industry thanks to its Material Facts program, and its consumer-facing sustainability pages are detailed and easy to understand. The brand has published a comprehensive annual impact report since 2020, including emissions and materials data. Additionally, Rab has been responsive to our team’s inquiries regarding sustainability.
Compared to other brands, Rab uses an impressive share of recycled content across its products. Recycled synthetic materials typically have a smaller carbon footprint than their virgin alternatives, and as a result, these low-impact materials are becoming a key component of many outdoor brands’ carbon reduction strategies. These materials are becoming more common in outdoor apparel and soft goods from major brands, and leading brands like Rab are steadily moving toward exclusively using recycled materials in these product categories.
In 2025, Rab reported that over 80% of the fabric it purchased was made from recycled materials, placing it among industry leaders in this area. (For comparison, more than 95% of Patagonia's polyester and nylon came from recycled sources in 2025.) Rab used 14% more recycled fabric than in 2024, continuing its upward trajectory. The brand recently began using NetPlus nylon, a fabric made from recycled fishing nets, and in 2026, the brand’s product line incorporated nearly 50,000 pounds of repurposed nets collected from fishing communities around the world.
Notably, Rab also uses recycled down in many of its products. In 2019, it launched the Horizon Down Hoody, its first product featuring recycled down. By 2025, more than 70% of the down that Rab purchased came from recycled sources, putting it on par with industry leaders like Patagonia. To ensure traceability, all of Rab's recycled down is certified to the Global Recycled Standard (GRS), which verifies recycled material content throughout the supply chain. The brand also operates a down recycling program, detailed later in this article.
Bluesign-approved materials are produced in accordance with high standards for chemical management, environmental impact, and worker safety, with traceability throughout the supply chain—from chemical suppliers to fabric mills to finished products. As a result, Bluesign-approved materials have become the gold standard for many outdoor brands seeking to reduce their environmental impact. In 2024 (the last year the brand reported on this data), just under a quarter of Rab’s Tier 2 fabric mills were Bluesign System Partners, placing it a step behind leading brands in this area.
Rab was among the later major outdoor brands to sign on as a Bluesign System Partner, joining the program in 2025. Although it joined later than many of its peers, we welcome the brand's commitment to the Bluesign System and responsible chemical management. So far, only a handful of the Rab products we've researched feature Bluesign-approved materials, but the brand has set ambitious goals to expand their use. By 2029, all new products are expected to be Bluesign Products, and by 2032, Rab aims for every product it manufactures to be a Bluesign Product.
In 2025, Rab eliminated intentionally added PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, from all its products, but its journey to remove these chemicals from its gear began in 2013. PFAS are a group of chemicals historically used to repel water and oil from outdoor gear. They’re linked to several adverse health impacts, ranging from cancer to developmental delays in children. In 2025, California and New York banned the chemicals from use in textiles, spurring brands to clean up their supply chains.
In 2013, Rab began experimenting with PFAS-free durable water-repellent (DWR) treatments, and by 2021, over half of its DWR-treated fabrics were PFAS-free. In 2023, it reached 95%, and in 2024, it missed its target to rid its entire supply chain of PFAS. Rab completed its phase-out in fall 2025, putting it on par with many outdoor brands. Industry leaders in this area, like Fjallraven and Keen, were early adopters, removing PFAS from their products and completing phase-outs of intentionally added fluorinated chemicals in 2015 and 2018, respectively.
Rab has made respectable progress toward sourcing responsibly-sourced natural fibers, or materials that comply with third-party standards for environmental impact and animal welfare. The brand uses a large share of down in its products, and all of Rab’s virgin down is certified to the Responsible Down Standard, which ensures traceability to farms that meet animal welfare standards. When it comes to leather, Rab only sources leather from suppliers that meet Leather Working Group (LWG) standards, meaning that leather is a byproduct of meat production and is produced in accordance with the LWG’s standards for waste, chemical, and water management.
Although Rab uses very little cotton in its products, all the cotton it does use is certified organic, reducing reliance on pesticides. Unfortunately, Rab does not source wool from third-party certified suppliers; instead, it sources mulesing-free wool, which is a good practice for animal welfare, but does not address the environmental impacts of wool production. All in all, Rab is moving in the right direction when it comes to responsible natural fiber sourcing.
In 2020, Rab became a member of Fair Wear, a nonprofit organization that works with brands to ensure fair wages, safe working conditions, and workers’ rights in the apparel industry. Fair Wear audits factories against its standards and publishes annual brand performance reports evaluating members' progress. In 2021, Rab received its first report, earning a “Good” rating. In 2022, it earned the organization’s highest distinction, “Leader” status, which it has held since. In 2025, 70% of Rab’s production volume came from suppliers assessed by Fair Wear.
Rab also partners with other factory audit programs, including Amfori Business Social Compliance Initiative, to monitor labor conditions throughout its supply chain. In 2025, 63% of its factories earned a rating of “B” or above, the minimum grade to meet our responsible manufacturing standard (up from 55% in 2024). While Rab continues to make progress, it reported that only 35% of its production volume came from facilities where workers were paid a living wage. Like much of the apparel industry, Rab still has room for improvement in this area.
Rab became a Certified B Corporation in 2026, joining companies that meet B Lab's standards for social and environmental performance, accountability, and governance. In its first year, Rab earned a B Impact Score of 84 out of 200 possible points (for reference, ordinary businesses earn a median score of 50.9, and a score of 80 or above qualifies a company as a B Corp). To maintain certification, B Corp companies undergo regular assessments of their climate action, fair labor practices, environmental stewardship, human rights, and stakeholder governance.
While packaging typically accounts for only a small fraction of a brand’s greenhouse gas emissions, it’s a major source of waste. To reduce its packaging footprint, Rab has both reduced packaging volume and increased the recycled content of its packaging materials. Since 2021, Rab has reduced its upstream poly bag volume by up to 70% by rolling and folding clothing into smaller shapes while steadily increasing the recycled content of its poly bags. It has also diverted 12 metric tons of poly bags from the landfill since 2021, equivalent to around 500,000 bags. The poly bags that it uses in its upstream shipments are made with between 75 and 100% recycled content.
Rab also collects poly bags from U.S. and U.K. distribution centers so they can be recycled into pellets for new bags. In 2025, the brand removed poly bags from e-commerce shipments and now ships its products in recyclable paper and cardboard, although we were unable to confirm whether those materials contain recycled content. Unfortunately, Rab doesn’t report on its other packaging materials.
Repair services help keep gear in use longer, and Rab's program stands out for both its scale and the range of repairs it offers. In 2025, the brand repaired almost 16,000 products, up from about 13,500 products in 2024. Common repairs include patching, full zipper replacements, panel replacements, and stitching and seam repairs. Repairs covered under warranty are fulfilled free of charge, while non-warranty repairs can be requested for a fee. Rab operates repair centers in the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands, and Canada, and in 2025, it opened customer-facing service centers in Denver and the U.K. The brand also offers “Second Stitch” repairs, which use end-of-life fabric and other reclaimed materials to patch damaged gear.
Rab also washed over 8,500 products in 2025, helping keep them fresh and water repellent for longer. Notably, you can also send in gear from other brands to Rab for washing (in the first 6 months of this program, Rab washed almost 400 non-Rab products). To help you care for your products at home, Rab publishes a variety of how-to articles on its website, addressing topics from washing a sleeping bag to repairing a Gore-Tex jacket.
We love Rab's down recycling program, which accepts down from jackets, pillows, and bedding products. The brand launched the program in the U.K. in 2021 before expanding it across Europe and the U.S. in 2023 (drop off your down at Rab’s Denver store, or send it in to Tersus Solutions). Rab sends the collected down to its partner, Minardi Piume, where it is cleaned, sorted, sterilized, and processed into Global Recycled Standard (GRS)-certified recycled down before receiving a hydrophobic treatment. As of 2025, Rab has repurposed almost 600 pounds of down, with another 3,500 pounds bailed and awaiting shipment. Nearly 60% of the collected down came from sleeping bags and apparel, while bedding accounted for just over 30%. Notably, Rab’s recycled down provides the same warmth and performance as virgin down, allowing the material to remain in use much longer.
Unfortunately, unlike Arc’teryx, Patagonia, and The North Face, Rab doesn’t offer a resale platform for used products. Re-commerce programs help keep gear in use for longer, enhancing the circularity of a brand’s supply chain.
Like many outdoor brands, Rab started tracking its carbon emissions in 2019. Equip Outdoor Technologies, Rab’s parent company, set a target to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 46% and its Scope 3 emissions intensity by 61% by 2030 compared to its 2019 baseline. Equip is also committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, defined as a 90% absolute reduction across all scopes. Rab’s Scope 1 and 2 reduction targets were approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in 2024, an organization that ensures alignment with Paris Agreement temperature thresholds, while its Scope 3 target is science-aligned but not verified by the SBTi.
Rab has already made impressive progress toward those goals. After emissions peaked at approximately 42,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) in 2022, they fell to around 18,000 tCO₂e by 2025—about 27% below the company's 2019 baseline. During the same period, Rab reduced its average product carbon footprint by 63%, from 14.9 to 5.5 kilograms of CO₂e. Rab is one of the few outdoor brands to achieve a meaningful reduction in its absolute greenhouse gas emissions, even as many companies continue to see emissions rise. While progress has not been linear, we're encouraged by the brand's trajectory and hope to see it continue.
Annual impact reports provide transparency into a brand’s sustainability data, typically including sustainability goals and in-depth emissions and materials data. Rab published its first annual impact report in 2021, detailing its sustainability progress for 2020-2021. In recent years, its impact reports have been incredibly thorough, describing year-over-year emissions data, low-impact material use, responsible manufacturing programs, circularity initiatives, and more. Rab’s impact report is among the most comprehensive in the outdoor industry, providing ample insight into its goals and progress toward achieving them.
In addition to its thorough annual reporting, we love Rab’s Material Facts program, which details the recycled and PFAS content of each product by fabric type, insulation, zips, and trims. It also details the percentage of renewable energy used in the final stage of manufacturing, and the product’s country of origin. Rab’s transparency around these data sets the standard for other brands in the industry, and we love seeing it take the initiative to improve customers’ understanding of the materials and energy used in its products.
Rab operates a stewardship fund that supports a variety of causes focused on protecting wild places, expanding access to the outdoors, supporting outdoor industry partnerships, and reducing product impacts. In 2025, it awarded over $500,000 in funding to more than 40 organizations. Some of the organizations Rab supports include Boulder Climbing Community, the Outward Bound Trust, Ladies Weekend Out, Boulder U.K., and Wanderers of Colour.
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