Better Trail Certified
May 06, 2025
Table of contents
Our process goes like this: Our sustainability experts start with a product category (rain jackets, for example), and research all of the things happening in the world of sustainability relevant to that category. This is at both the product level (such as PFAS, recycled materials, and Bluesign materials), and at the brand level (such as repair services, carbon emissions tracking, and an annual impact report).
We then set our sustainability criteria, ranging from about 6 to 10 factors depending on the category. Products are evaluated against each of those criteria through research, checking brand websites, confirming those claims, and emailing brands. With all that information in hand, we plug the results into our ratings system for a final sustainability score from 0 to 5.
Better Trail Certified products score a 4 out of 5 or better in our sustainability ratings, and generally meet around 80% or more of the criteria. While it’s true that no product is 100% sustainable—all take resources to create and arrive at your doorstep—Better Trail Certified products are industry leaders and among the most sustainable products on the market.
Just over 25% (or one in four) of the total products evaluated by Better Trail have received our Certified distinction. This varies by category—we have seen greater sustainability efforts in areas like apparel, while some hard goods are still lagging behind. We also expect this percentage to decrease as our Sustainability Hub grows, as many of the brands we started with are leading the charge. In the end, Better Trail Certified is a well-earned distinction, and we want it to stay that way.
We have heard from many people who want to start their search for outdoor gear through a sustainability lens, rather than it being an afterthought. If this sounds like you, you can visit the Better Trail Certified page, see all of the products that have received this distinction in one place, and even sort by product category, brand, and other variables to customize your experience. For those who care deeply about sustainability, it’s your new home for outdoor gear research.
Outside of that, if you ever come across a piece of outdoor gear and are interested in how sustainable it is, you can check its sustainability rating on Better Trail (more on how to request product research below). Last but not least, this information is presented throughout our site. Every product in our gear guides (like the best rain jackets, for example) has a dedicated box featuring all of its sustainability attributes, along with a link to an even more detailed sustainability report. The same goes for our in-depth product reviews.
It’s important to note that we are independent media and are presenting this sustainability information to you in as neutral a light as possible. When we open a new product category and/or work through a fresh list of gear to research and evaluate, our goal is to give you the most accurate information, whether that’s favorable or unfavorable. Every product and brand is held to the same standards, and we don’t care how the ratings come out in the end. Our job is to do the dirty work and provide you with the best sustainability information available, and then you can decide what exactly that means to you.
Great question. We’ve taken this process very seriously from the start, starting with our criteria for each category (we have lengthy internal debates about what is worthy of being included, how to label each, and frequently make adjustments as we learn more). In fact, the first set of ratings on our site (we call them our “Version 1.0 ratings”) was binary in that a product would receive a “yes” or a “no” for criteria like recycled materials. Our Version 2.0 ratings, which we rolled out fully with the launch of the Sustainability Hub in 2025, are even more nuanced is that each criteria has a proprietary weighting system with multiple tiers and points within each (for example, we consider exactly how much of a product is made up of recycled materials and give points accordingly).
In addition to constantly striving to improve our ratings system, we expect that the bar will be raised with each passing year. The current sustainability ratings on Better Trail are a snapshot into this world in 2025, but we hope and expect that there will be more progress in the future, that more innovation will take place, and that we will be adding new criteria (and perhaps retiring some old metrics, too). Like many things, sustainability progress is not static, and our ratings and research will not be either.
If you, as a reader, have a question about sustainability or can’t find a product for which you would like to see a sustainability rating, please email us at [email protected]. If you are a brand and have made improvements to a product, added information to your website, would like to make a correction, or would like to obtain a badge for a qualifying product, please use this form or email us at the address above.
Sustainability
About Our Sustainability Ratings
Education
The Higg Index, Explained
Education
Bluesign, Explained
