About Ethical Endurance
Welcome!
Hey there, my name’s Barnaby and I’m a triathlete trying to figure out how to compete in endurance sport without ignoring what it costs the planet.
If you’ve ever stood in a transition area looking at the trail of gel wrappers and thought “there has to be a better way”, this blog is for you.
About me
I’m a triathlete based in the UK, and I’ve been competing in triathlons for almost 10 years. I also work for an environmental charity, and I’ve always been uncomfortable with the level of consumerism in endurance sport.
What’s the problem?
In a time where we are facing a global climate crisis and our natural environments are being degraded through over-exploitation and unsustainable consumerism, many of us are deciding to make ethically minded choices in our day-to-day lives to reduce our own carbon footprints - what we eat, how we travel, and what we throw away.
But when it comes to sport, the information just isn’t there in the same way. You can spend a whole evening trying to figure out whether a brand’s ‘eco’ claims are meaningful or just good marketing, and end up none the wiser. That gap is what this blog tries to fill.
What role can we play as athletes?
Competing in endurance sports often requires consuming large amounts of sport-specific nutrition products and owning the latest equipment and gear, both of which can potentially have massive impacts in increasing our footprint on the world. Your standard triathlon kit list is a diorama of polyester, nylon, carbon and other woven plastics, much of which is single use – I’m looking at you, energy gel sachets!
What can we do about it?
In my experience as a triathlete, this area of performance sport is often avoided. In the pursuit of optimum performance, ethical and environmental considerations are often an afterthought at best. However, if like me you are conscious of the need to minimise your environmental impact, what exactly can we do about it?
Like anything in life, it comes down to choices. Simple decisions like choosing an energy bar brand which uses biodegradable packaging, or a running shoe which has a resoling service, can have a massive impact on reducing your environmental footprint.
What this blog is for
Ethical Endurance is a blog about making better choices as an endurance athlete.
The idea is pretty simple: if you want to buy a pair of cycling shorts or an energy gel that’s actually made responsibly, you shouldn’t have to spend your rest day reading corporate sustainability reports to find out.
I research the brands, dig into the certifications and supply chains, and write up what I find. Part of it is just me working things out for myself, honestly. But I’m publishing it because I think it’s useful — if I’ve already spent the time reading a brand’s sustainability report or checking whether a certification actually means anything, there’s no reason that research should sit in my notes app.
I hope it can help you make your own decisions. Not to tell you what to buy, but to give you the information to make a more informed choice — and to save you some of the time I’ve spent figuring it out the hard way.
→ Read more about why I started this
A note on affiliate links
Some links on this site are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. I only link to products I’ve scored using the ethical framework. The scores and reviews are never influenced by affiliate relationships — if a product doesn’t deserve a good score, it doesn’t get one, regardless of whether there’s a link attached.
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