With all the “Go Green” happening these days in everything from food to automobiles, choosing Eco-Friendly products can be both confusing and overwhelming. Throw in comfort, fit, style and price into the equation and that beautiful green color we think of can quickly turn to more of a murky brown color. ActiveOutfitters understands this challenge and that’s why we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible to identify the Eco-friendly products that we carry, and provide an explanation as to why we’ve given it our seal, our 
Essentially, there are three elements that enable a product to obtain our Eco-Friendly Seal of Approval: 1. It must be made from Organic materials, or 2. It must be Sustainable and 3. It must be produced in an Ethical manner.
Organic
Not to be confused with “Natural”, “All Natural” or “Hippies Only,” Organic is defined by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) as “an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony…(with) the primary goal of optimizing the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people.”
So how does this apply to that cool Beneficial T-shirt from Patagonia you love to wear? That T-shirt is made from 100% organically grown cotton, meaning the cotton used to manufacture the shirt was produced under the strict Organic Agriculture guidelines set-forth by the NOSB and other Organic Production Boards around the world. It is grown without the use of (synthetic) pesticides, fungicides, or inorganic fertilizers, which contaminate water, soil and kill delicate eco-systems within them. By comparison, conventionally grown cotton consumes approx. 25% of the insecticides and more than 10% of the pesticides used in the world and roughly a third of a pound of these chemicals are used to produce 1 conventional cotton t-shirt. To learn more please visit www.aboutorganiccotton.org
Sustainable
In general, sustainability espouses conservation of resources and integrating human needs with those of the rest of the planet. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines sustainability as "the ability to achieve continuing economic prosperity while protecting the natural systems of the planet and providing a high quality of life for its people." This can be measured in terms of water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and natural resource management.
For the purposes of receiving our Eco-friendly Seal, a product must have been either
1. Produced from recycled materials, or
2. Produced from a renewable resource, such as hemp or wool
In the apparel industry, manufactures like Patagonia, Ibex, PrAna, Keen, and many others are incorporating all kinds of sustainability practices including utilizing recycled plastics to create fleece, offering recycling for old capilene performance base layers and fleece garments, incorporating environmental impact into their building plans, and using solar and wind as alternative power sources for their plants, just to name a few. Not every product produced by these manufactures is considered Eco-Friendly for our purposes, but we certainly appreciate their sustainability efforts and would like to support them however we can.
Ethical Manufacturing
The scope of ethical manufacturing can be vast and far-reaching, depending on how closely one chooses to examine the manufacturing supply chain. For example, just because a garment was produced without child labor in a healthy working environment does not guarantee that the manufacturing process used eco-friendly low impact dyes and did not use harsh and potentially toxic chemicals. As troubling as it may be, ethical manufacturing can be subjective. What may be appalling to one person, may be perfectly acceptable to another.
Here at Active Outfitters.com, we do not support any form of unethical manufacturing. However, we are also conscious of the reality we live in. As a consumer, you have choices. As a retailer, we are here to provide you with choices as well as education, and leave it up to you to decide what is ethical and what is not. That said, we guarantee that everything we sell has been manufactured under the following guidelines:
• Produced in a clean, healthy and safe environment
• No child labor is used
• Fair and reasonable wages are provided
• Environmental impact meets or exceeds all regulated EPA standards
Eco-Friendly Clothing Fibers
• Organic Cotton
• Wool
• Hemp
• Bamboo
• Biopolymers made from Corn and Soy
• Fleece made from recycled plastics
