My 2 cents' worth:

Peer pressure is what it is. Accept it as a fact on the ground. It's a force of nature. You can manage it, work around it, shape and temper its influence, but you cannot remove it from the equation.

You've done a lot of work to build up building bush and tool skills. These will not go away.

Now it's time to take it to the next level. Teens are building the capacity to explore the world conceptually as well as physically. The largest part of being equipped to survive (TM) is strategy, not stuff. That means building the habits of situational awareness, resilience, positive attitude, and perseverence. It's about learning to analyze situations, recognizing what could go wrong, and having mitigation plans in place beforehand. Churchill was right: "When you're going through hell, keep going!" Adolescence can be hellish. The traits above can help them keep going.

EDC may not be stylish. But maybe you could encourage a stash of useful clothing and items in a hidden compartment in a backpack, school locker, or anywhere they could get to it if they really needed to. The previously learned skills will kick in.

Also, learning to improvise with the materials at hand may be more important than EDC right now. The world is full of stuff; it's the skill to use it that's in short supply. Cody Lundin's "When All Hell Breaks Loose" may be more interesting to a teenager.

If all else fails, bribe a teenage girl to say "that's really cool!" DS will wear his EDC around his neck like a magic talisman!