SUSTAINABILITY
ETHICS BEFORE PROFItS
ETHICAL & QUALITY MANUFACTURING
Sweatshops are everywhere. Not just in Asia, but even in the USA! Google 'California sweatshops' and you'll see what we mean. You'll realize that 'Made in the USA' doesn't always necessitate it's ethically made.
Unfair wages and excessive hours are all part and parcel of sweatshops. That's why many fast fashion brands can sell at ultra-low prices. They can easily sell a t-shirt for a few dollars when their garment workers are paid next to nothing. The quality is usually ridiculously poor too.
Worker exploitation and poor-quality throwaway fashion are our red lines. The factories we source from are all GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified. That means a certifying body regularly inspects these factories to check their workers are paid livable wages, paid overtime and work in safe conditions.
Because our workers are paid decently, we actually pay our suppliers more for a single t-shirt than what fast fashion brands sell for. But that's a small price to pay for an ethical supply chain and superior quality slow fashion that lasts wash after wash.
GIVING BACK
IMPACT
It's not all about having organic cotton and an ethical supply chain. That drives us for sure. But what REALLY drives us is being able to give back and make a real impact. Not in some far-flung place, but in our local communities. Close to home.
We're legally compliant to raise donations through Work For Good. We don't do ambiguous donations from net profits which can literally be anything.
We simply give 2% of every sale to a designated cause. You know exactly how much we'll donate on the cart page. We keep things fresh by changing the cause every two months.
Our current campaign from September 1st - October 31st 2024 is raising for Centrepoint. They're a UK registered charity whose mission is to end youth homelessness through prevention, supported housing, education, training and employment.
BUILDING TRUST
SUPPLIER TRANSPARENCY
We don't do greenwashing. That's when a business misleads customers by falsely claiming to be ethical and friendly to the environment. Businesses wanting to jump onto the environmental bandwagon should prove how they're making a difference.
It can be risky for micro businesses like us to disclose their suppliers. Our much bigger competitors could walk all over us with this knowledge. But the benefit of you knowing exactly who we deal with is a no-brainer. It helps builds trust that we do actually care about ethics & sustainability.
Our current apparel supplier is GOTS certified. That means they process organic fabrics. It also means their workers are paid fairly, paid overtime and receive other benefits such as pension contributions.
Scan the QR code on the infographic to verify them on the official GOTS website.
100% ORGANIC COTTON
SUSTAINABLE FABRICS
Standard, non sustainable fabrics harm people and ruin the planet. Polyester is a man made fabric. The manufacturing process releases chemical toxins which pollute the air and harm factory workers.
Standard cotton is another unsustainable fabric. Growing cotton needs huge amounts of water. It can take up to 5,400 500ml bottles of water to make just one cotton t-shirt. Growing standard cotton also needs chemical fertilizers which harm the soil, surrounding vegetation and the wildlife depending on it.
We only use sustainable fabrics such as GOTS certified 100% organic cotton. Growing organic cotton consumes up to 90% less water during production and uses only natural fertilizers.
LESS IS MORE
LIMITED QUANTITIES
Fast fashion brands have deep pockets. They're so deep that they'll overbuy inventory, seduced by deep factory discounts for buying big quantities. A percentage of that order won't get sold. This unsold stock (deadstock) can end up in landfills or in incinerators. What a waste.
We hate waste, especially apparel waste. For us, less is always more. We only order by market demand, even if it means we have to pay more for limited quantities. This helps us to sell 100% of our inventory with zero waste, taking pressure off the supply chain.
POLYMAILERS USED BEFORE
RECYCLED PACKAGING
We use way too much plastic - up to 5 trillion plastic bags worldwide every year. That is only 5,000,000,000,000! Around 10% of all plastic ends up in the world's oceans. And only 9% of all plastic actually gets recycled. The rest is only used once and can end up at landfills. Horrific.
We're doing our part in reducing plastic use. All our (cool) black poly mailers are made from 100% post-recycled plastic. That means the plastic in them had already been used somewhere else. And you can recycle our poly mailers again. After ripping out your lovely tall menswear in delight, of course.
