How We Choose

Intentionally chosen. Thoughtfully lived.

For us, that means choosing with care for the animals who share our lives and the wider world they live in.

Thoughtful curation means looking beyond how a product appears or how it is marketed. We consider how it is made, what it is made from, how it is used, and what information is available to support the claims made about it.

We do not expect every product to be perfect. Materials and manufacturing involve trade-offs, and words such as natural, vegan, organic or sustainable do not tell the whole story on their own.

What matters to us is being specific about what we know.

Before anything else, a product has to earn its place in the Paw & Perch assortment. We consider practical function, quality, comfort, thoughtful design, supplier reliability, and whether a product adds something genuinely useful rather than simply adding more choice. 

We would rather leave a gap in the collection than add something that does not meet our standards.

Eco Essentials

Eco Essentials brings together products with documented environmental, animal-welfare or other ethical qualities that we believe are worth making easier to find.

A product may be included because of meaningful recycled or repurposed content, renewable materials with supportable sourcing information, reusable or reduced-waste design, responsible sourcing, credible certification, repairability or durability, or another clearly supported environmental attribute.

Where relevant information is available, we may also consider impacts such as resource use, waste, water, land use, pollution, habitat pressure and end-of-life.

Some products may qualify for ethical reasons, such as documented vegan materials or cruelty-free practices. We keep those distinctions clear rather than treating every ethical attribute as an environmental one.

How we verify

We review available manufacturer and supplier specifications, material information, certifications, written supplier confirmation and relevant testing or standards where appropriate.

The strength of the evidence should match the strength of the claim.

Broad descriptions such as eco-friendly, green or sustainable are not enough on their own. Likewise, material-safety attributes such as BPA-free or non-toxic can be useful product information, but they do not automatically mean that a product has a lower environmental impact.

When evidence is incomplete, we either narrow the claim to what can be supported or leave the product out of Eco Essentials until we know more.

Thoughtful, not perfect

Being included in Eco Essentials does not mean a product is impact-free or environmentally preferable in every part of its lifecycle.

Many products combine materials with different benefits and trade-offs. Rather than applying a blanket “sustainable” label, we aim to tell you what specifically earned the product its place in the collection.

Our standards will continue to evolve as better information becomes available.

Standards that inform our approach

Our approach is informed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Green Guides, relevant California environmental-labeling guidance, the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition framework, and principles used in the EU Ecolabel system. We use these sources to help shape a careful, evidence-based approach to environmental claims; Eco Essentials itself is a Paw & Perch curated collection, not a third-party environmental certification.