9 Sustainable Mattresses For The Best Eco Friendly Sleep
What exactly makes for a good night’s sleep?
Definitely not the climate crisis…that’s for sure. And neither will the toxic chemicals, child labour and environmental injustices associated with the mattress industry.
Fortunately, there are a pillow top plethora of sustainable mattresses that aren’t dozing off when it comes to sourcing the dreamiest materials and ensuring their workers are fairly treated.
These sustainable and eco friendly mattress brands will give you the cleanest conscience for the deepest sleep.
PlushBeds is one of the few brands making an eco friendly memory foam mattress (without the environmental problems of traditional foam).
Next, we recommend Naturepedic if you want your bed crafted by skilled Amish tradesmen!
Every sustainable mattress from Avocado has numerous certifications to keep you sleeping sound on non toxic comfort.
Use the quick links to navigate and head to the bottom to see what was important to us when finding these brands.
*This post contains affiliate links
QUICK LINKS FOR SUSTAINABLE MATTRESS COMPANIES
1. PLUSHBEDS
About PlushBeds
After learning certain common household chemicals may have been the catalyst for the disease that led to CEO Michael Hughes’s father’s death, he began detoxing his family home.
He learned that flame retardants from mattresses end up being absorbed by the people sleeping on them. In fact, studies show flame retardant levels being 75% higher in American women’s breast milk than in European women’s (where flame retardants are restricted).
PlushBeds was the result of this life-lesson, offering a range of affordable eco friendly mattresses (organic, memory foam, sofa bed, and RV) and organic comforters.
PlushBeds’ Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Less than 1% of other mattress brands can match the certifications of Plushbeds’ sustainable mattress lineup, such as those by eco-INSTITUT and OEKO-TEX.
They use 100% GOLS certified organic latex, GOTS certified organic cotton, and GOTS certified organic wool. Everything is USDA Organic Certified, too.
Their environmentally friendly memory foam mattress is blended with organic latex and free of the 61 chemicals (including a few carcinogens) usually found in memory foam.
Supply chain & labor practices:
PlushBeds works with a US-based factory that is verified by Control Union and certified by both GOTS and GOLS.
For material sourcing, they work with farmers who share the same values and regularly meet their suppliers personally.
That means ethical wool sourced from United States cruelty free farms.
Green business practices:
PlushBeds pays a third party to run regular audits to ensure they’re living up to their own expectations.
Partnering with TerraPass Carbon Neutral, they offset the impact of their website and offer a 25-year manufacturer warranty on their mattresses.
They’re also a Green America Certified Business and Sustainable Furnishings Council, aiming to make the home industry better as a whole.
Community & charitable giving:
The PlushBeds Green Scholarships program has donated thousands of dollars to students, and the brand supports numerous other organizations, including Hometown Heros, Every Kid Counts, and The Village of Mange Bureh.
Available: PlushBeds
2. SAATVA
About Saatva
Saatva’s luxury eco friendly mattresses are available in innerspring, hybrid, memory foam, or specialty designs, including youth and crib mattresses.
No matter the size you need—twin to sustainable California king (including split California king)—they’re designed to provide cooling comfort as well as back and joint pain relief.
Each one comes with a 365-night trial, free in-room delivery, and free old mattress removal (though we’re keen to know what they do with the old mattresses and will reach out to confirm).
Saatva’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Eco friendly mattress materials include organic cotton, GOTS certified organic New Zealand wool, and natural latex certified by OEKO-TEX® Standard 100, eco-INSTITUT®, Rainforest Alliance, and Cradle to Cradle.
The innerspring mattresses feature durable triple-tempered carbon steel coils while each eco friendly memory foam mattress contains Certipur-US Certified eco memory foam.
Each mattress page breaks down the exact makeup layer by layer.
Being a chemical free sustainable mattress brand, theirs features flame retardants made from thistle pulp and a Guardian botanical antimicrobial treatment.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Using a combination of old fashion handcrafting techniques and state-of-the-art techn, Saatva mattresses are made in one of 19 American independent factories.
This ensures their products are “factory fresh” and made under ethical conditions.
Green business practices:
Each environmentally sustainable mattress is backed by a lifetime warranty.
With 145 fulfillment centers delivering across the country, mattresses on average travel less than 100 miles from factories to each home. Reducing significant transport emissions.
Community & charitable giving:
Saatva works with the Housing Authority of the City of Austin and nonprofit group Austin Pathways to provide mattresses and bedding to new residents of subsidized housing programs, as well as student scholarships.
They also help mentoring programs, specifically to students new to the US, through PENCIL.
Available: Saatva
3. AVOCADO
About Avocado
Years ago, the founders of Avocado were on the hunt for a green mattress, that was non-toxic, made from organic materials, and affordable.
Suffice it to say options were few, so, they took matters into their own hands and became one of the most respected environmentally friendly mattress brands.
With thousands of 5-star reviews and raving consumer reports, Avocado Green Mattress lives up to the name.
They offer both wool and vegan sustainable mattresses, crib mattresses, eco-friendly mattress toppers, eco-friendly pillows, and select sustainable furniture.
Avocado’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Their Green Mattress is made with GOLS organic certified Dunlop latex (made from sustainably harvested latex rubber), GOTS and OEKO-TEX 100 certified ethically sourced wool, and GOTS certified organic cotton.
This 100% latex core mattress is not only fully biodegradable, but doesn’t use innersprings, so it’s better for the environment and stomach and back sleepers who prefer a firm feel.
Other hybrid mattresses utilize springs that would need to be removed before composting.
If wool is too baaa baaa bad for you, Avocado’s vegan mattress uses GOTS and PETA approved organic cotton.
Each natural sustainable latex mattress from Avocado is free of polyurethane foams (but still feels like memory foam), polyester, and toxic fire retardants (replaced with a natural hydrated silica fire barrier), ensuring their MADE SAFE certification.
Supply chain & labor practices:
With an innovative “farm-to-bedroom” approach, Avocado works with an ILO compliant Indian farm wool collective and owns their own FSC-certified rubber tree farms.
They manufacture in their GOTS and GOLS certified Los Angeles factory providing living wages and benefits like comprehensive health care and mental health support.
Avocado is a Certified B-corp and member of the Sustainable Furnishings Council.
Green business practices:
All mattresses are under warranty for 25 years with a full 1-year sleep trial.
Avocado is GREENGUARD Gold Certified for low emissions and uses clean energy for manufacturing.
They’re considered Climate Neutral but are actually the only sustainable mattress company with negative carbon emissions thanks to a partnership with Bonneville Environmental Foundation.
Check out their Sustainability Report to learn more about their green-achievements.
Community & charitable giving:
Avocado helps to keep mattresses out of landfills by donating 90% of returned products to nonprofits.
They’re also a member of 1% for the Planet and allow staff members quarterly paid volunteer opportunities.
Available: Avocado
4. NATUREPEDIC
About Naturepedic
While addressing the need for toxic-free sleep, Naturepedic is one of the biggest and most sustainable mattress companies.
Their selection of organic pillows, bedding, crib mattresses, and adult mattresses are free of flame retardants and polyurethane foam, ensuring safer and healthier sleep.
Naturepedic’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
They start with a USDA-certified, US-grown organic cotton fill which is combined with organic wool batting. Their top-of-the-line eco-luxe mattresses also contain alpaca, cashmere, and organic latex.
Following this is a plant-based PLA layer made of non-GMO sugarcane material that wicks moisture and adds resiliency.
Another layer of organic cotton encases the mattress and voila…you have one of the most eco friendly mattresses!
Sustainability extends down to the support coils and microcoils that are free of toxic chemical glues.
Each sustainable organic mattress is MADE SAFE Certified, UL Certified, GREENGUARD Gold Certified, and GOTS Certified.
Supply chain & labor practices:
While materials are sourced from around the globe, Naturepedic keeps production in the US by working with skilled Amish craftspeople.
Not only do their vendors adhere to some of the world’s strictest working conditions, but some are Rainforest Alliance certified too.
Green business practices:
Naturepedic is an award-winning Green America Certified Business that uses recycled FSC-certified packaging and provides a means of mattress recycling for customers.
Community & charitable giving:
Their partnership with organizations like 1% for the Planet, Women’s Voices for the Earth, and Toxic-Free Future further demonstrate Naturepedic’s commitment to a sustainable and socially responsible world.
Available: Naturepedic
5. HAPPSY
About Happsy
Off all sustainable mattress companies, Happsy was the first to make a fully organic sustainable mattress-in-a-box.
If you think that’s exciting, wait until you watch it spring to life upon opening.
They’re available in Twin to California king with organic mattress protectors and bases to match.
Happsy’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Happsy mattresses feature bounce-reducing and heat-dispursing pocketed springs surrounded by GOTS certified organic cotton filling.
That’s topped with Rainforest Alliance organic latex, followed by organic wool batting, and an organic cotton case.
If you don’t have a bed frame, add their organic mattress foundation, featuring an FSC-certified pine wood frame covered in organic cotton.
Napping with Happsy means you’ll never go to bed with flame retardants, formaldehyde, glues, or adhesives.
They’re products are registered or certified by Made Safe, Zero Toxics, Greenguard Gold, and UL Environment.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Each sustainable organic mattress is made in the USA in Happsy’s own ethical factory that pays “excellent wages” and cultivates a family environment.
Green business practices:
With a 120-night trial and 20-year warranty, Happsy is certain you’ll love their mattress.
They’re a Green America Gold certified business and members of the Organic Trade Association, American Sustainable Business Council, and Sustainable Furnishings Council.
Community & charitable giving:
Also a member of 1% for the Planet, they donate a percentage of profits to organizations like Kids for Saving Earth and Women’s Voices for Earth.
Available: Happsy
6. THE FUTON SHOP
About The Futon Shop
Female founded in 1976, The Futon Shop is the California king of sustainable mattress brands.
By which we mean they have a massive selection—in addition to their sofas and futons, as you might have guessed.
Mattresses, futon mattresses, crib mattresses, memory foam mattresses, toppers, and even mattresses for your furry friends (AKA eco friendly dog beds).
Surfaces come in tufted or quilted and the firmness spectrum ranges from very soft to very firm, suitable for side sleepers and back sleepers alike.
Starting with eco friendly twin mattresses, you’ll find all the usual sizes.
The Futon Shop’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Given their huge selection, you’ll find many sustainable mattress materials in various combos (but all backed by numerous certifications).
These include GOLS certified organic Dunlop latex, GOTS organic cotton, coconut fiber coir, copper, OEKO-TEX certified hemp coir, Certipur-US Certified soy-based memory foam, and antimicrobial copper.
You’ll never find proteum based foams in their products.
While there are plenty of vegan sustainable mattress options, some feature camel hair, cashmere, horsehair (all OEKO-TEX Certified), or GOTS certified organic wool.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Looking for a sustainable mattress USA-made?
All Futon Shop mattresses are made in one single vertically integrated factory in San Francisco. Since they own it, there’s no middleman involved.
As a “farm to furniture” company, they purchase raw cotton and wool from local farms (sometimes regenerative ones) and process it on site.
Green business practices:
Each mattress is designed to have a 10-15 year life expectancy.
Community & charitable giving:
Through the years, The Futon Shop has worked with 1% for the Planet and donated to causes like supporting indigenous people and the homeless for each of their copper-infused face masks sold.
Available: The Futon Shop
7. SPINDLE
About Spindle
Founded by a 4th generation mattress maker, Spindle knows their stuff—about mattress stuffing, that is.
Theirs is entirely organic and come in two options—a sustainable hybrid mattress and sustainable latex mattress—in twin, twin XL, queen, and king sizes with an optional matching foundation.
To provide a more affordable sustainable mattress, they eliminate retail middle men and sell solely via e-commerce.
Spindle’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
The Organic Hybrid Mattress features GOTS certified organic cotton fabric, GOTS and OEKO-TEX organic wool batting, natural organic latex, and individually wrapped coils.
The Organic Latex Mattress is much the same, sans the coils.
You won’t find chemical flame retardants, VOCs, or chlorinated or brominated solvents.
That said, while it means they are not vegan, the wool acts as a natural flame retardant that’s fire-resistant, “not fireproof”.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The organic wool is ethically sourced from New Zealand and carded by Woolgather in Northern California and the latex comes from Sri Lanka.
All mattresses and covers are made in the USA.
Green business practices:
In addition to other certifications by GOLS, GOTS, and OEKO-TEX, the latex is also certified carbon neutral.
Each mattress comes backed with a 365-day comfort guarantee, 10-year warranty, and 25-year Comfort Life program.
The latter means that if you modify your mattress with another layer of latex (say, if it no longer feels as firm) you’ll get a 30% discount any time during that period.
Community & charitable giving:
For every ten sold, Spindle donates one sustainable mattress to those in need.
They also donate 10% of profits to environmental causes.
Available: Spindle
8. BIRCH
About Birch
Birch is all about the most natural materials for their organic mattresses and mattress toppers.
We’re not the only fans—they’ve been voted the Best Natural Mattress by Business Insider and the Best Organic Mattress from Wired (to name just a few).
Since they also sell FSC and LEED certified eco friendly bed frames treated with zero-VOC finishes, they’re all-around one of the most eco friendly mattress brands around.
Birch’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
With Birch, getting an environmentally friendly mattress on a budget doesn’t mean compromising on eco friendly materials.
A GOTS-Certified organic cotton cover hugs natural wool fibers (combined with rayon), 100% organic Birch wool, organic wool batting, and natural Talay latex (which is OEKO-TEX Certified and eco-INSTITUT Certified).
Supply chain & labor practices:
Birch uses sustainably sourced organic wool that can be traced back to individual New Zealand farms and is PCG Wrightson Wool Integrity Program compliant.
The Talalay latex undergoes a similar traceable process.
It’s sustainably tapped from rubber trees grown in Southeast Asia, Brazil, and Africa. All plantations are closely monitored and the process is OEKO-TEX certified.
The US-grown cotton is GOTS certified and joins the other materials which are then handmade into an eco friendly mattress in the USA.
Green business practices:
This Greenguard certified business offsets part of its carbon footprint.
Community & charitable giving:
How about counting trees instead of counting sheep?
With a Birch mattress, a portion of sales is donated to the National Forest Donation.
Available: Birch Living
9. BRENTWOOD HOME
About Brentwood Home
Brentwood Home is the OG of natural mattresses. They started waaayy before anyone was aware they were tossing and turning in toxins.
Brentwood is all about beautiful sleep products that fit into a healthy lifestyle:
“We strongly believe our environment, especially our homes, are at the center of our well-being, allowing us to live comfortable, happy lives.”
If you’re looking for an affordable eco friendly mattress without compromising quality or values, their range of organic, natural, and/or vegan mattresses won’t disappoint.
Brentwood Home’s Ethical and Sustainability Practices
Materials:
The sustainable fabrics used by Brentwood Home include TENCEL™, GOTS organic certified wool, and GOTS organic certified cotton.
They also use a CertiPUR-US® certified memory foam made with BioFoam® memory foam (corn starch or sugar cane PLA polymers) combined with silk fibers.
While silk isn’t vegan, you can still buy their sustainable vegan mattress that combines tons of pocketed coils, Dunlop latex, and activated charcoal-infused memory foam.
Their eco friendly hybrid mattress is made from GOTS certified organic wool, hemp fabric, upcycled denim, and REPREVE® recycled water bottles.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Transparency puts our minds at ease and you can check out where each of Brentwood Home’s materials are sourced before being manufactured in their GOLS-certified LA-based factory.
Green business practices:
Most of the sustainable mattresses are GREENGUARD Gold Certified and 100% carbon neutral via Carbonfund.
Community & charitable giving:
For every mattress sold, Brentwood Home through their partner National Forest Foundation plant three trees in American forests.
They also build Relief Beds, which are temporary and durable beds used for impoverished people and disaster victims.
Available: Brentwood Home
HOW WE FOUND THE BEST ECO FRIENDLY MATTRESSES
A good mattress is one of the best investments you can make. But a bad mattress can give you more than a sore back.
Not only do discarded mattresses take up 132,000 square miles of landfill space but they’re also responsible for generating an enormous amount of chemicals and petroleum byproducts that we can’t see.
Now that we know what to avoid when it comes to sleep, here are a few considerations we made when finding the best eco-friendly mattress, which is unsurprisingly the same across most home essentials like sustainable bedding, linen curtains, linen sheets, and more.
Materials:
Comfort is obviously important, but the best sustainable mattress materials are as close to nature as possible.
Organic cotton, organic wool, and organic latex are the big three and obvious features in organic crib mattresses.
When foam was used, we looked for renewable, plant-based alternatives (typically made with PLA).
There were a few brands using polyester blends, but we tried to prioritize companies who used this material sparingly.
And we also went with sustainable mattress companies who were committed to ensuring that our midday naps would be toxin-free, particularly in regard to the flame retardants they use.
- Certifications: GOTS, USDA Certified Organic, AAFA-certified, OCS100, Fair Trade, Woolmark, Rainforest Alliance Certified and Oeko Tex.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Let’s fall asleep to thoughts of transparency.
We gave brands two thumbs up when they knew where their materials were sourced, used US-based factories, and provided good working conditions and fair pay. When these were backed up by certifications to ward off greenwashing, even better!
- Certifications: Fair Trade, FLO-certified, GoodWeave International, eco-INSTITUT Certified, PCG Wrightson Wool Integrity Program, and Textile Exchange.
Green business practices:
One of the most important things when it comes to green practices is the longevity offered by each mattress brand.
As more than 18 million mattresses are thrown away each year in America, sleeping in the same bed for a longer period of time is one of the most sustainable sleep habits you can have.
That’s why we looked at brands that provided long warranties (lifetime warranties are obviously the most desirable). Another great green practice is those that offer mattress recycling services for old mattresses.
Any other green practices (carbon offsets, recycled plastic-free packaging, etc.) are a bonus we love.
Community & charitable giving:
It looks like the mattress industry is one that likes to give back.
Every brand on this list makes an effort in one way or another—from donating recycled mattresses to planting trees for each purchase.
We also know that we’ve only uncovered the top layer of a sustainable mattress. Supply chains are complex and the materials (down to the springs) could still be investigated. This is why replacing a mattress should only be done on an as-needed basis.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON ECO FRIENDLY MATTRESSES
Hopefully, you didn’t read this article before bed.
Unless you want to count sheep to fall asleep… ethically raised sheep, of course!
It’s a serious issue that regular mattresses are associated with so many health and environmental problems—but thankfully sustainable mattress brands are changing the status quo for healthier shut-eye.
Just remember, even the most sustainable mattress is not as eco friendly as the one you already own.
Though, you should still consider the toxicity of your current one – which can pose a risk to your health.
If you are replacing your mattress, be sure to dispose of it responsibly, whether through a recycling program offered by one of these brands, donating it to someone in need, selling it (provided it’s in good, clean condition), or repurposing it.
Know anyone in need of an environmentally friendly mattress?
Feel free to share this guide with them so together we can support sustainable sleep and a healthy planet!
