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sustainable athelisure brands

Stunning Sustainable Activewear Brands You Will Love in 2023

With each passing day, we are subjected to more and more bad news about our planet. If it feels a little overwhelming, you’re not alone! One thing that helps is to focus on the things we can control. This is where your role as a consumer comes in.

It’s no secret that fashion plays a big role in the state of our planet. It may seem like these problems are too big for us, individual consumers to tackle. After all, each of us is just one person amongst billions, right? Nope!

It is because of consumers’ higher expectations and demands for ethical production that we’re seeing more sensitive and thoughtful fashion collections pop up. We even have a healthy crop of sustainable activewear brands to share with you today!

We’re all familiar with the buzzwords – sustainable, earth-friendly, ethical, and so on. Now put our wallets behind the brands that are truly making an impact on cleaning up fashion’s unaesthetic carbon footprint!

Whether it’s environmentally friendly workout clothes made from water bottles or eco-friendly swimwear, there are plenty of brands to support. We have them all listed for you right here on Carrot! So your next online shopping experience can be sustainable and guilt-free!

Related: 4 Simple Shopping Habits to Help the Environment

5 Sustainable activewear brands to bookmark –

1. Girlfriend Collective

Girlfriend Collective

Sizes available – 3XS-6XL

Girlfriend makes you feel really good about lounging around in slacks all day. Their sustainable activewear is made from polyester or nylon and get this – the fibers to make these fabrics are recycled from plastic bottles and discarded fishing nets!

With each piece you buy, you also receive a sustainability report. Among other things, this detailed report tells you the number of water bottles that did not end up in landfills because they were made into these sustainable activewear sets instead! The fabrics that Girlfriend uses are certified by the consumer safety standard, Oeko-Tex.

2. Summersalt

Summersalt

Sizes available – XS-2X

If Clea and Joanna are wearing it, we’re in! Not only does Summersalt feature prints from their collab with Netflix’s binge-worthy organizational inspiration, The Home Edit, but they have a print (or a solid) to suit every preference.

The best part is that the fabrics that Summersalt uses are made from plastic bottles and similar materials, many of which are fished out from our oceans! With each piece they create, there’s less plastic in our big, beautiful seas.

When you receive your order, you also get a note that tells you how many plastic bottles were recycled to make each piece. For instance, every sports bra from their sustainable workout clothing collection is made of 8 plastic water bottles – that’s 16.9 oz!

Summersalt also prides itself on putting inclusivity, comfort, and functionality front and center! Their cuts and designs are a result of a ton of research. They collected over 1.5 million body measurements from approximately 10,000 women to inform their designs.

3. Organic Basics

Organic Basics

Sizes available – XS – XL

Organic Basics holds itself to high ethical standards and this is evident in their practices. Beginning from their website which gives consumers the option of browsing a low-impact version. This one is designed to consume less energy and reduce your carbon footprint. Among other edits, it only loads images of the products on request as those use more data and therefore, more energy.

Organic Basics uses low-impact textiles and certified factory partners for their products. To give customers an idea of what their production spaces look like, photographs of their facilities are available. Customers are invited to explore the nitty-gritty of their global operations… down to the way they utilize their scraps!

Products feature a unique Impact Index detailing the brand’s environmental footprint –the amount of water conserved, CO2, and waste diverted from landfills. OB is committed to standing by their sustainable measures even if these aren’t always easy.

4. Pact

Pact

Sizes available – XS – 2XL + Kids sizes

Setting itself apart from other sustainable athleisure brands, Pact uses only organic cotton made in fair trade factories. According to their website, growing organic cotton requires 81% less water than non-organic cotton farming. It sustains the health of the soils, ecosystems, and people by using natural farming processes in over 45 countries. Pact is sweatshop and child-labor-free.

Pact is the only one of the sustainable activewear brands in this article to offer more than athletic wear. Besides sustainable workout clothing, they also offer baby and children’s clothes. Bed and bath linens are also available with Pact.

5. Activewear by Reformation

Activewear by Reformation

Sizes available XS-XL

This eco-friendly activewear collection uses fabric that is made completely from plastic bottles. This fabric is known as Repreve and the brand is certified by Oeko-Tex as well as GRS. The fabric’s journey from plastic to polyester is completely traceable.

Available in a range of soothing colors and muted neutral shades, the Repreve fabric utilizes less energy (45%), and water (20%) and produces a smaller quantity of GHG emissions (30%) when compared to the process of manufacturing brand-virgin polyester fabric.

Popular pieces from this sustainable activewear collection include one-piece jumpsuits, sports bras, and leggings with a high-rise design. These products are also delivered with the specifics of how many water bottles were recycled in creating each piece.

Related: A Beginners Guide To Clean Beauty Products

How To Tell If a Brand Really Is Sustainable?

How To Tell If a Brand Really Is Sustainable

Source: Unsplash

The next time you’re looking to buy another of those lightweight tights that you can spend your day in, look at eco-friendly athletic wear collections. Since these are often the staple pieces of one’s closet, it’s a big step in taking your closet toward being more sustainable.

To prevent being taken in by greenwashing, we’ve looked for some pointers that you can use to gauge a brand’s practices. According to the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion, these are some of the standards that sustainable clothing brands should –

  • Keep their business practices transparent
  • Have a strong sense of social responsibility and give back locally through charitable programs. This could include themes of social integration and the environment
  • Ensure safe working conditions for their employees, safeguard human rights, follow labor laws, and pay fair wages
  • Minimize their environmental impact in terms of pollution, emissions, and overall carbon footprint. Also, minimize their water as well as energy consumption in production practices
  • Minimize the chemicals used in the process including pesticides and fertilizers
  • Employ recycling programs for their products, have recyclable packaging, use naturally grown fabrics, and dyes to prevent more non-biodegradable waste from going into landfills
  • Ensure that their practices are not harmful to wildlife or natural habitats
  • Make clothes with integrity, those which last a long time for the buyer

Related: Impulsive Buyers’ Guide To Slow Shopping

Take your pick of sustainable activewear brands with Carrot!

Every time you place an order, you’re contributing to the world order that you want to see. Support sustainable brands and you’ll see those thrive, ushering in safer practices and social change for the better.

For those of you who are committed to turning over more sustainable lifestyles, Carrot has you covered. Instead of spending hours online, hunting for sustainable activewear brands, you can find them all on one platform!

Available as an app or a Chrome extension, Carrot minimizes your open tab count by presenting you with collections from across the web! Not to mention, those invaluable price drop notifications on your favorites! If you’re keen on sharing your specially curated eco-friendly athletic wear collections with your community or your followers, that’s easy as pie with Carrot!