Your Travel Clothing Claims to Be Eco-Friendly. But Is It?

Reading about the environmental impact of your travels tends to be a depressing exercise. The news tends to be bad – the more you travel, the more you pollute. The more gear or clothing you buy, the greater your impact. There’s no getting around these, but there is good news, too. The travel and outdoor industries are at a turning point regarding sustainability. As Neil Baker, Senior Director of Global Brand at Smartwool & icebreaker, said at a sustainability panel at Populus in Denver in March, brands must “move from doing less harm to doing more good.”

Among the many companies discussed in this story, I’ve elected to include Smartwool and icebreaker not simply because reps from these brands participated in this panel, but because in doing so they provided significant documentation of the companies’ efforts to build circular supply chains. There are many brands in the travel and outdoor space working towards circularity, and I believe their efforts deserve to be amplified, even when they aren’t perfect or are still a work in progress, because building more sustainable supply chains for travelers requires scale, and scale stars with awareness.

Sourcing recycled, low-impact, and circular products: Why it matters

Photo: Jerry Horbert/Shutterstock

Making your travel gear setup more “eco-friendly” is a heck of a process. It requires you to be a “discerning traveler” instead of an “average traveler.” This involves a good deal of research and can be expensive. Telling the difference between travel brands who are greenwashing and those taking actual, meaningful action to reduce the environmental impact of their products takes research and a keen eye for connecting dots. Once you get started, though, building a less-impactful travel setup is actually a rewarding and even enjoyable process that ensures you have long-lasting gear and clothing that will perform well on the road and head back into the production circle once its useful life is finished.

The key pillars of eco-friendly travel gear

Most merino wool comes from New Zealand, and it can be farmed sustainable and ethically. Brands that use this wool should make their sourcing practices clear. — Photo: Martina Krivankova /Shutterstock

The first metric to employ is the basic fact that it’s always more impactful to produce something than to do nothing. Every piece of clothing, every roller bag, every reusable water bottle was made from materials that originated as a natural resource. This makes the first step to a better travel setup looking for products and clothing made from recycled materials. It’s easy to distrust marketing departments, but in this case those marketing the products you buy can be your friend because a brand using recycled materials is very likely going to be very forthcoming about the fact that it’s doing so. A brand that doesn’t note that it’s using recycled polyester or nylon or whatever the material may be, isn’t.

When shopping for a product, whether on Amazon or REI or in a physical store, check the label to see if this is noted. To determine if a travel product or clothing brand is misleading about its use of recycled materials, start by looking for specific claims rather than vague buzzwords. Brands genuinely using recycled materials will clearly state the percentage and source, such as “75% recycled polyester from PET bottles,” rather than just saying “eco-friendly” or “made with recycled materials.” Reliable certifications like the Global Recycled Standard (GRS), Recycled Claim Standard (RCS), OEKO-TEX, or bluesign help verify authenticity, so check if the company provides these certifications with traceable proof. Be wary of deceptive wording in product descriptions, as some brands highlight “recycled fabric” when only a small portion actually qualifies. Look for 100 percent recycled fabric.

Additionally, reputable brands often publish sustainability reports detailing their material sources and environmental impact, so a lack of transparency can be a red flag (see this goals and progress report from Smartwool as an example). Checking independent watchdog sites like Good On You or EcoWatch can help uncover greenwashing. Price and availability can also be indicators—genuinely high-recycled-content fabrics are more expensive, so if a product is unusually cheap while claiming to be fully recycled, do a bit more digging by looking up the brand online to check reviews or certifications. On a similar note, third-party reviews or investigative reports can help confirm whether a brand is living up to its promises. If a product’s claims feel vague or unverifiable, it’s worth digging deeper before buying.

Buy organic and, where possible, regenerative

Looking for tags that specifically state which materials are recycled, and what percentage — as well as a circular logo — is a good start in finding eco-friendly travel clothing and gear. Photo: triocean/Shutterstock

Much like at the grocery store, a simple way you can be sure your travel clothing, in particular, is less impactful is to buy clothing made of organic cotton, regenerative merino wool, oand other products free of first-use polyester and other plastics. Much like those using recycled materials, brands using organic or regeneratively-sourced materials will be quick to tell you about it. Icebreaker is a leader in regenerative merino, Patagonia a leader in organic cotton clothing. Brands accused of not doing so but making claims of eco-ethics include Allbirds, which faced a class-action lawsuit alleging it misled consumers about the ethics of its wool sourcing.

Alpaca wool has gained much traction in recent years. PAKA produces travel-friendly clothes using alpaca wool, each with a QR code that allows consumers to trace the wool in that product back to the specific South American farm it was sourced from, and learn about the farmer who produced it. This is great – but it’s important to note that not all of the brand’s products are 100 percent alpaca wool, and some use recycled polyester or recycled nylon – and when products use these materials it’s important to check that they are from recycled sources.

Look for brands that are following science-based targets in their sustainability claims

Photo: T. Schneider/Shutterstock

Larger umbrella companies with bigger budgets as well as smaller brands should employ verifiable metrics to document the impact of their production line. The most official of these is the Science Based Targets initiative, which uses data points from climate science and years of research to, in the case of travel gear and clothing brands, help them document difficult-to-quantify metrics like emissions reductions or regeneration efforts.

VF Corporation, which owns major brands like The North Face and Vans as well as gear and clothing companies Smartwool and Icebreaker, is a prime example of leveraging the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to reduce its environmental impact. The company set ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals – including a 55% reduction in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a 30% reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2030, using 2017 as a baseline. To achieve these targets, VF is implementing key strategies such as sourcing 100% renewable energy for its owned and operated facilities by 2025, exemplified by a 12-year virtual power purchase agreement for wind energy expected to cut over 100,000 metric tons of CO₂e annually.

The company is also investing in green building initiatives, like its LEED Gold-certified distribution center in Ontario, California, and is committed to sourcing 50% of its polyester from recycled materials by 2026, with a goal of having its top nine materials be regenerative, responsibly sourced, or recycled by 2030. Additionally, VF engages with over 400 supplier factories through the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) assessment and has trained over 1,000 supplier managers on environmental best practices. These efforts, combined with comprehensive supply chain engagement and material sustainability initiatives, demonstrate VF’s commitment to systematically reducing its environmental footprint while aligning with global climate goals.

This is one example, and the company still has work to do to reach its goals – but it’s easy for consumers to read about the process on the company’s website and connect the claims to what is actually happening.

GORE-TEX, on the other hand, is currently involved in a class-action lawsuit over alleged greenwashing which claims that it still uses PFAS in its production cycle, even though the company claims that its products are free of forever chemicals.

Buy from brands that consider end-of-lifecycle logistics

Smartwool is installing these used sock collection boxes at REI stores and other locations to recycle socks. Photo: Tim Wenger

In addition to ensuring that a product is produced with as little impact as possible, it’s important to consider what happens to the clothing or gear after you’re done with it. The goal here is not to throw it away – but to recycle it or repurpose it. The term “circularity’ has a lot of buzz – and that’s because it is the ultimate goal when working towards “doing more good.” Circularity refers to a closed-loop system where products are designed, produced, used, and disposed of in a way that maximizes resource efficiency because little to nothing gets thrown away. Rather, materials are given another life.

This is where brands can get innovative, and many exciting new concepts are springing up. Some brands are taking back end-of-life products and using them to make new stuff. Salt Legacy in Victoria, British Columbia, takes used sails from sail boats and repurposed them into travel backpacks, purses, handbags, and other carrying receptacles built for rugged use on the road. Another BC company, Anian, creates travel and lifestyle clothing made entirely from repurposed materials. Smartwool will send you a cardboard container in which to put used socks (from any brand) to send back to the company for recycling. In the case that these socks are Smartwool socks, your old socks will actually be repurposed via the Second Cut Project into new Smartwool gear (after being thoroughly cleaned, of course) at the company’s factory in Tennessee.

By incorporating these principles of tracing sourcing from production through repurposing, you are doing your part to ensure your travel clothing and gear are as eco-friendly as possible, and using your dollar as a voice to encourage other shoppers and companies to further the same.

“All brands need to be thinking of waste as a resource,” Baker says.