Our Top Picks for More Sustainable Back to School Outfits

Little Emperor creates unique, functional, and hard-wearing clothing for children. Its affordable clothing is made from environmentally friendly organic cotton, with every garment designed in Sydney, Australia and made in a Sedex-approved factory ensuring living wages and safe working conditions for workers. From the materials and packaging, right down to the energy supplier and banking, Little Emperor is dedicated to environmentally friendly practice. Named in honour of the adorable Emperor Penguin, Little Emperor is a member of 1% for the Planet, meaning 1% of sales are donated to environmental non-profits, helping protect the penguins’ home.

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Shop Little Emperor.

Sense Organics is an established German brand that has been dressing kids in its colourful organic cotton range for 18 years. We give it a "Good" rating for its commitment to lower-impact materials and its treatment of garment workers, including ensuring suppliers pay a living wage.

Find clothes for kids aged 0-10.

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Shop Sense Organics.

Orbasics is a stylish and simple German clothing brand that turns the softest organic cotton into gorgeous clothes that last. Born from a desire to seek out high-quality, gender neutral organic clothes for her daughter, founder Lilija took matters into her own hands. Orbasics thoughtfully chooses more ethical and responsible options from harvest to production, using 100% GOTS certified cotton and certified local production partners.

Find the adult range in sizes 2XS-2XL and kids range in 92-152.

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Shop Orbasics.

Mini Rodini offers more sustainable baby and kids clothes, accessories, and more. It is certified by OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 and is a member of the Fair Wear Foundation.

Find the adorable range for 0-11 years.

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Shop Mini Rodini @ LVRSustainable.

Shop Mini Rodini Pre-Owned @ Vestiaire Collective.

Shop Mini Rodini Pre-Owned @ Retykle.

Shop Mini Rodini.

Dimples is a New Zealand based brand that offers a large range of specialist baby and mother care products. The brand uses the highest-quality soft, warm New Zealand merino and pure organic cotton to make a wide range of baby clothing, blankets, and accessories.

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Shop Dimples Pre-Owned @ Retykle.

Shop Dimples.

Children's accessories and fashion brand which places ethics in the heart of all creative processes. It uses a high proportion of lower-impact materials including GOTS certified cotton, and most of its supply chain is either independently audited or visited by the brand.

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Shop Coq en Pâte.

Conscious Step creates premium fair trade, organic, vegan socks and clothes which support great charities. The US brand is committed to lasting social and environmental change and every step it takes in its production process supports farms and factories with fair wages, safe facilities, and lower-impact materials.

The socks come in S-L sizes, and the clothes in 2XS-2XL.

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Shop Conscious Step.

Nui Organics was founded on a culture rooted in consciousness, community and intentional design on an ethos that puts people and planet first. It creates high-quality, low-impact Merino wool and organic clothing for families, in timeless styles.

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Shop Nui Organics.

Frugi is a British label that specialises in bright, wearable organic clothing. There are plenty of playful designs as well as classics. Frugi has you covered for maternity wear and nursing clothes, as well as baby and children’s wear. We love the distinctive designs and commitment to putting the planet first.

Find the range in sizes 0-10 years for kids, and XS-XL for adults.

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Shop Frugi.

Shop Frugi second hand @ Retykle.

Infantium Victoria offers beautiful vegan luxury for all ages. This German brand scores highly across the board. Its products are certified by Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), and it sells previously owned products to minimise textile waste.

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Shop Infantium Victoria.

Offbeat Sweetie is a little family-owned Australian brand. It makes fun and lower-impact shoes for unique people.

Find AU kid's shoe sizes 3-9 and adult sizes 35-47.

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Shop Offbeat Sweetie.

BeeKeeper Global creates backpacks, iPad cases and other fashion accessories out of discarded fabric waste.

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Shop Beekeeper Parade.

Jackalo creates organic playclothes for kids. It uses a high proportion of lower-impact materials including Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified cotton, and reuses all of its offcuts to minimise textile waste.

Find most items in sizes 4-14.

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Shop Jackalo.

Shop Jackalo @ Cerqular.

Kings of Indigo makes quality denims, tops, and accessories inspired by American classics with a Japanese eye for detail. The brand uses GOTS organic cotton as well as recycled cotton and wool, and avoids all chemicals from the REACH chemical list.

Offered in sizes XS-L.

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Shop Kings of Indigo.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to wear their morals, look no further. Not only is a tree planted every time you purchase a NIKIN product, you also get to show your tree pride.

Products are available in sizes XS-XL.

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Shop NIKIN.

EcoRight is an Indian brand that creates products that help people go more eco in a fun way, offering items made from lower-impact and responsibly-sourced materials.

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Shop EcoRight.

Greek brand Théla creates handcrafted fashion and lifestyle accessories with plastic waste. Witnessing the increasing reliance and problems around disposable plastics and over-consumption, founder Diti Kotecha is on a mission to inspire change, diverting plastic from filling landfills, polluting oceans, and harming wildlife. From waste to yarn to you, it crafts pieces using lower-impact materials working with partners from disadvantaged communities, and is entirely vegan.

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Shop Théla.

Born in Byron Bay, Afends is a responsible brand leading the way in hemp fashion. Drawing inspiration from the environment, streetwear, and surf culture, Afends’ mission is to create more sustainable clothing through innovation, action, and positive change. As true hemp advocates, they purchased 100 acres of farmland called Sleepy Hollow to grow their own hemp crops and ignite the hemp revolution.

Find most of the range in sizes XS-XL.

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Shop Afends.

NAE is a Portuguese footwear, bags, and accessories brand using innovative materials to create goods with “No Animal Exploitation”. Its lower-impact materials include recycled PET from bottles, OEKO-TEX® certified microfibres, recycled car tyres, natural cork, recycled thermoplastic, and even pineapple leaf fibre.

Find most of the shoes in sizes 36-46.

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Shop NAE.

Shop NAE @ Staiy.

Shop NAE @ Urbankissed.

Dutch denim brand MUD Jeans is all about sustainability. Not only does it offer a repair service, but it also provides a rental service where you can lease a pair of jeans for up to a year. MUD Jeans uses a combination of GOTS certified organic cotton and post-consumer recycled cotton.

MUD Jeans are available in a range of sizes, usually from W25 L30-W33 L32 for women and W28 L34-W36 L34 for men.

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Shop MUD Jeans.

Girlfriend Collective creates minimal, luxury clothes made with certified fair labour, certified by the Social Accountability Standard International SA8000. The brand uses lower-impact materials like recycled polyester as well as lower-impact, non-toxic dyes and is fully OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 certified.

Inclusively sized Girlfriend Collective offers products from 2XS-6XL.

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Shop Girlfriend Collective @ LVRSustainable.

Shop Girlfriend Collective.

Up-Fuse is a Cairo-based social enterprise that promotes an eco-conscious lifestyle. Believing “one’s trash is another’s fabric”, the brand works with Syrian, Ethiopian, and Sudanese female refugees in Egypt to create its unique products.

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Shop Up-Fuse.

Canadian brand tentree believes big change starts small. Small as in bringing your reusable bag to the grocery store, making fewer, more thoughtful purchases, and choosing to purchase more sustainably when you do. The brand plants ten trees for every item purchased to help regenerate ecosystems and provide planting jobs in communities around the world, and has already planted over 65 million trees.

All tentree’s products are created with an Earth-First approach, meaning they're made in fair, safe working conditions, and constructed using lower-impact and recycled materials.

tentree’s super comfy fabrics and easy wardrobe staples are typically available from XS-XL.

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Shop tentree.