The vast majority of outdoor brands are owned or run by responsible people that care about the outdoor environment. And all outdoor brands are aware that the vast majority of their potential customers care about the outdoor environment and its future and that they will therefore look kindly on / show a preference towards brands that are doing what they can to help protect the environment. So Up and Under as an outdoor retailer that has long thought hard about environmental concerns (one of the first brands that we started working with back in the mid 70's was Patagonia) also puts weight towards brands that are doing positive things towards this end. The most responsible brands in turn put ongoing expectations on us retailers in order to keep working with them, e.g. we have installed solar power panels and power storage amongst other things in order to reduce our carbon footprint.
Over the past few years we have seen an increasing use of recycled material in outdoor products and their packaging (e.g. Patagonia (those guys again) using fibres made from discarded fishing nets reclaimed from the oceans). We have also witnessed moves to make more product recyclable, animal welfare to be raised to an extremely high level (in the collection of down for example) and companies like Mammut investing heavily in Carbon Capture and regenorative farming.
