7 Eco-Friendly Gear Gift Ideas
Buying new gear can be green.
While we encourage you to repair and reuse gear as much as you can in an effort to reduce your environmental footprint, there are some brands out there making huge strides in environmentally-friendly gear for the outdoors, travel, and everyday life. If you're shopping for a tree-hugger this holiday season, you can't go wrong with any of these gift ideas.
1. Allbirds Tree Toppers
Allbirds' Tree Toppers are the first closed-toe shoe in their lineup to incorporate their award-winning SweetFoam shoe sole. Made from sugarcane sourced by farms audited for keeping true to environmental impact standards, SweetFoam is the world's first carbon negative green EVA foam. To increase impact, Allbirds has open-sourced their SweetFoam technology making it available for the rest of the footwear industry. In addition, the Tree Topper uppers are made with responsibly grown and sustainably harvested eucalyptus pulp, and 100% of the material in their laces is made from post-consumer recycled polyester. Perfectly suited for travel and everyday wear, the Tree Toppers are super light and incredibly comfortable, and it doesn’t take long to fall in love!
2. Patagonia P-6 Label Uprisal Crew Sweatshirt
The Uprisal Crew Sweatshirt is 95% recycled, made using 10.8 plastic bottles and .6 pounds of cotton scrap, saving 143 gallons of water as compared to a conventional cotton sweatshirt. In addition to the materials being sustainably sourced, the Uprisal Crew Sweatshirt is also Fair Trade Certified sewn. Patagonia made no sacrifice in comfort or functionality with the eco-friendly materials; this piece is ultra soft and warm, making it a perfect midlayer for any adventure.
3. Costa + Bureo Untangled Collection
Costa recently joined forces with Bureo, a company focusing on pulling plastic fishing nets out of the ocean, breaking down the plastic, and repurposing it for products. Their website states that 18 billion pounds of plastic enter our waterways every year, and that plastic fishing nets make up 10% of that waste and have been found to be four times more harmful than other forms of plastic pollution. Thus, Bureo and Costa have designed the Untangled Collection of sunglasses which are built from 100% recycled fishing nets and are fit with Costa's mineral glass lenses.
4. Cotopaxi Luzon Del Dia
Cotopaxi launched as a Benefit Corps with the mission to use their revenue to help alleviate poverty in the poorest regions of the world. Most of their products support humanitarian efforts but the Luzon does double duty. Revenue from this pack contributes to Cotopaxi’s many humanitarian partners but it’s also an environmentally-friendly piece as it uses repurposed materials that might otherwise have gone to waste.
5. La Sportiva Mythos Eco Climbing Shoes
The Mythos have been a crowd favorite in the climbing community for some 25 years with a reputation as the most comfortable climbing shoes that perform at a high level time and time again. More recently, La Sportiva released the Mythos Eco that are made from 95% recycled material and sacrifice little-to-nothing in performance.
6. Jungmaven New Tahoe Terry Sweatshirt
Jungmaven is a hemp-based apparel brand changing perspectives on how comfortable hemp clothing can really be! Warm, soft, and incredibly cozy, it’s easy to want to live in their clothing. While in school, Robert Jungmaven began learning about how industrial hemp could combat deforestation because of its fast growth and regeneration and other positive environmental effects. The Jungmaven brand was born shortly after, and in 2010 Robert launched HEMP2020, a campaign to raise awareness of the positive environmental impacts of hemp farming.
7. Protect Our Winters Beanie by Cirque
Protect Our Winters was founded by professional snowboarder and environmental activist Jeremy Jones as a means to bring the snow sports community and industry together to fight climate change. Not only is this beanie (made by Cirque Mountain Apparel) toasty and good looking, but the revenue helps support POW’s mission and is a great conversation starter for you to spread POW's message in your own circle.
Cover photo courtesy of Costa + Bureo
We want to acknowledge and thank the past, present, and future generations of all Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples whose ancestral lands we travel, explore, and play on. Always practice Leave No Trace ethics on your adventures and follow local regulations. Please explore responsibly!
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