9 Best Sustainable & Ethical Sock Brands for an Eco-Friendly Step

Paka

Price Range: ~$25 (single)—$150 (6 pack)

Paka’s outdoor socks are built for adventure. They offer ankle socks and crew socks in a range of styles. Most pairs are made from OEKO-TEX 100 certified alpaca fiber, Tencel, recycled nylon and 1% spandex.

The alpaca fiber makes up 43% of the fabric content and helps the socks to be thermoregulating and light. They also don’t stay wet given their water retention rate and bacteria doesn’t grow on alpaca so they don’t smell (win!).

Paka’s fiber is sourced from free-roaming herds in the Peruvian Andes and is traceable to the GPS coordinates of its specific source, thanks to Paka’s unique transparency program.

Paka partners directly with Indigenous artisans and Inca herding communities, helping preserve cultural traditions through fair wages and skills development. The Certified B Corp also donates 1% of revenue to grassroots initiatives in Peru and powers 50% of its wool spinning process with renewable energy.

Paka has been rated by Sustainable Jungle. See the full rating.

Pact

Price Range: $17 (2 pack)—$30 (3 pack)

You can toe-tally fill your sock drawer thanks to Pact. The Boulder, Colorado-based brand combines style, comfort, and sustainability to make its organic basics including underwear, tees, loungewear, sustainable bedding, organic sustainable socks, and more. They have your feet covered with their range of sustainable knee high socks, no-see-ums, ankle socks, and eco-friendly men’s crew socks. Both the sustainable socks for women and men come in several fun patterns and seasonal prints including a festive-themed Holiday Sock Box.

They use mostly Fair Trade and GOTS certified organic cotton in their ethical cotton socks. This is blended with nylon (sometimes recycled nylon) and a small percentage of elastane.

Most of Pact’s organic cotton comes from India, where majority of their organic basics are produced in Fair Trade certified child-labor-free factories. Pact purchases carbon offsets via a partnership with SimpliZero, and use Vela™ recyclable paper bags for packaging.

Send gently used clothing back to Pact in the same box your order arrives in, and the brand’s Give Back. Wear Forward program will distribute them to charity organizations.

Pact has been rated by Sustainable Jungle. See the full rating.

Conscious Step

Price Range: ~$20—$65 (3 pack sock box)

Conscious Step donates $1 from the purchase of each pair of socks to support one of their many partner organizations. All of their men’s, women’s, and kids’ sustainable socks are Fairtrade, organic, and vegan certified, and they come in a variety of fun prints. These sustainable ankle socks and crew socks are made from Fairtrade and GOTS certified organic cotton, recycled polyester, and just 2% elastane.

If you’re looking for ethical gift ideas for Christmas or birthdays, Conscious Step’s fair trade sock gift boxes are a thoughtful gift that gives back. You can also get a new pair each month with their subscription service.

Conscious Step is committed to a simple and transparent manufacturing process. The sustainable fair trade socks for men and women are made in India in a WRAP, SEDEX, OEKO-TEX®, GOTS, and Fairtrade International-audited factory that is regularly visited by Conscious Steps representatives in India and once a year by the US team. Tags and boxes for Conscious Step socks are made from recycled materials.

Conscious Step is a member of 1% for the Planet. Proceeds from each sale support one of 17 different partner organizations such as Action Against Hunger, Oceana, and the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. Choose from environmentally-friendly socks that protect endangered animals, empower women, support mental health, socks that save the rainforest, and other well-deserving causes.

Harvest And Mill

Price Range: $20—$104 (6-pack)

If you’re looking for durable socks made in America, wander into the fields of Harvest & Mill. This all-American sustainable basics brand specializes in only the most simple and essential of wardrobe pieces. Nothing represents that so much as their crew and ankle socks in simple, earthy colors.

They’re made of a thick and cozy blend of 88% organic cotton, 10% stretch nylon, and 2% elastic. The simple colors are actually not the result of dyes, but rather the natural colors of the cotton used. They don’t process their fabrics with synthetic chemical finishes, bleach, or toxic dyes.

Harvest & Mill is our go-to source for American-made women’s clothing. Because literally every step of their supply chain is USA-based—organic cotton farming, milling, and sewing. Instead of contracting out to large companies, they partner with only small, ethical, and independent suppliers and factories.

Like their cotton and products, their biodegradable mailers are USA-made, too. By investing in renewable energy and reforestation, Harvest & Mill fully offsets the carbon footprint of their operations. They also minimize waste by using precision patterns and upcycling scraps.

Happy Earth

Price Range: $15—$45 (3-pack)

Happy Earth’s answer to a happy earth is organic cotton and recycled synthetics. It’s what they use across their whole range of organic sweatpants, t-shirts, hoodies, and more. Their dreamy collection of printed sustainable socks is no exception.

These organic and recycled socks feature a blend of 75% organic cotton, 23% recycled nylon, and just 2% elastane. Those gorgeous designs are the product of sustainable dyes compliant with the ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List.

Fair Trade and/or WRAP-certified factories are responsible for 95% of Happy Earth’s apparel and accessories, all of which uphold their ILO-compliant Code of Conduct. Carbon Neutral Certified, Happy Earth powers manufacturing partially with solar energy, uses sea freight shipping, and ships using lightweight 100% post consumer recycled packaging.

A member of 1% of the Planet, purchases with Happy Earth let you either plant five trees, clean one pound of trash, or fight climate change by offsetting 150 pounts of emissions. The best part is that you get to choose which at checkout!

Allbirds

Price Range: $14—$18

Hailing from San Francisco, Allbirds is known around the globe for its sneakers. To pair with its sustainable running shoes, you’ll find plenty of sustainable running socks, as well as crew socks, hiking socks, ankle socks, and no show socks, all carefully designed to meet different performance needs.

The ethically made socks are made using a variety of different eco and recycled materials like TENCEL™, cruelty-free wool, recycled nylon, recycled polyester, plus smaller amounts of virgin polyester, nylon, and spandex. Their proprietary Trino™ (tree + Merino) yarn is soft, breathable, and moisture wicking—making it an ideal material for eco-friendly compression socks. It’s created from FSC-certified eucalyptus tree fibers combined with ZQ Merino wool.

Allbirds provides detailed information about its eco-friendly materials, like where the merino wool is sourced (New Zealand), where it’s spun (Italy), and where the eucalyptus wood comes from (South Africa). Final assembly happens in WRAP-certified factories in China and/or South Korea.

Allbirds is Carbon Neutral Certified. Each product has a carbon footprint calculator and the numbers are getting smaller all the time. 90% of their packaging is made from recycled materials.

Patagonia

Price Range: $25—$40

Sustainable fashion old-timer Patagonia has been operating consciously—even before it was cool. Now, they combine sports, stories, and activism with their long-lasting sustainable t-shirts, leggings, and so much more. While they do have a selection of crew and quarter ethical socks that are ideal for daily wear, Patagonia is all about sustainable high quality socks for the outdoors, from ethical trainer socks to sustainable ski socks.

Eco-friendly materials used for the socks include responsibly sourced merino wool, 100% of which is RWS-certified. It’s blended with nylon, most of which now comes from recycled sources. All of the dyes are PVC-free and phthalate-free.

Patagonia works with Fair Trade certified factories for most of their goods, including an American-owned one for their made-in-the-USA sustainable wool socks The Footprint Chronicles on the bottom of each product page show what factory and what country each item was made in.

They also offer a buyback and resale program (Worn Wear Initiative), and offer lifetime repairs. Patagonia is a founding member of 1% for the Planet and has taken corporate responsibility to a new level, working to spread awareness about environmental and social issues and getting people involved through their Patagonia Action Works program. Since selling the company to two environmental nonprofits, “Earth is [Patagonia’s] only shareholder”.

Kotn

Price Range: $12—$16

Kotn is a Canadian brand which works directly with cotton farming families in Egypt, specializing in a farm-to-table-esque system that directly supports the farmers and provides customers with long-lasting wardrobe staples. As for your feet, Kotn keeps it basic with dress, and crew socks. Check them out if you’re looking for sustainable socks in Canada.

Kotn’s Egyptian Giza “white gold” cotton (the main material in their ethical sustainable socks, t-shirts, and pajamas), is stronger than regular cotton and will last longer. It’s blended with small amounts of polyamide, polyester, and elastane

Using direct trade practices (like those in the coffee and tea industries), this Certified B Corp is able to directly support family-run farms and keep their prices stable and much higher than the average. They carry out regular audits to ensure fair working conditions are maintained, provide farming subsidies, and practice equal opportunity employment.

Kotn’s Giza cotton is the rarest type of Egyptian cotton. It only grows on a 100km stretch of land in Egypt’s Nile Delta. Since they manufacture nearby, the whole supply chain is super local. Kotn also handpicks their cotton, which preserves the integrity of the fibers, creates fewer emissions, and provides more jobs.

Partnering with a local Egyptian non-profit, Kotn helps prevent child labor by donating a portion of its proceeds to help fund and build primary schools.

Cariloha

Price Range: $10—$135 (9 pack)

Alongside bedding and towels, Cariloha offer bamboo clothing including activewear, bamboo pajamas, women’s and men’s ethical underwear, and more. They have plenty of different styles of sustainable socks for men and women including ankle socks, sustainable athletic socks, crew socks, knee-high socks, and no-show socks. You can also choose from a huge range of designs, whether you want boring ol’ black or something fun like the neon Tropical Foliage.

For their ethical socks, the bamboo viscose is blended with several other fabrics including organic cotton and a small amount of nylon and spandex. Though some do contain polyester linings, so we’d recommend checking the material makeup before you buy.

All products are tested for harmful substances in accordance with OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100. Cariloha has its own sustainably-run bamboo farm where they use zero pesticides before the bamboo fabric is safely made using GOTS-approved solvents in a closed-loop process.

Cariloha’s bamboo farm is in China’s Sichuan province and the bamboo is turned into bamboo fiber in China’s Hebei province. From there, the bamboo fiber travels to various manufacturing partners in China, India, Mexico, Turkey, and the US where it is woven and spun into yarn to make their sustainable bamboo socks. Some factories are Fair Trade certified.

The Certified B Corp’s box suppliers use materials that meet Sustainable Forestry Initiative Fiber Sourcing Standards and the paper packaging is FSC-certified. Cariloha supports several organizations through financial and product donations.