Establishing security in internet of things (IoT) is a critical challenge, as it is connected to the network's extremely resource-constrained devices. The RPL is a standard routing protocol for IoT. It is well-suited for low power and lossy networks (LLN). The RPL provides little security in the IoT network against various attacks. However, one needs to strengthen the security concern in RPL. So, this paper proposes a trust-aware, energy-based reliable routing (TAER-RPL) for IoT to enhance security among network nodes. The TAER-RPL is taken into account the routing metrics, namely trust, ETX, RER to pick the optimal parent for data transmission. The simulation is conducted in COOJA simulator. TAER-RPL's efficiency is compared with SecTrust-RPL and RPL. The TAER-RPL increases the lifespan of the network by 15%. Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.