Fair Trade apparel at Patagonia
Outdoor apparel company Patagonia is to offer Fair Trade certified apparel starting with nine styles for the autumn 2014 season.
For every Fair Trade product Patagonia sells, the company will pay a premium directly into a special workers’ fund. The workers will decide how to spend this fund based on their community’s greatest needs, including scholarships, disaster relief funds, medical care and transportation. Workers can also vote to take the Fair Trade premium dollars as a cash bonus, which may be equivalent to a month’s salary or more.
“Offering Fair Trade products is an important new tool for us to help ensure fair wages and workplace safety for the workers in the supply chain who sew Patagonia clothes," says Cara Chacon, director of social and environmental responsibility.
“We are also empowering the people purchasing our products. This effort is part of a larger strategy to raise awareness with our customers on how they can make a difference in the world with their purchasing decisions.”
Paul Rice, president and CEO of Fair Trade USA, said: "Patagonia’s groundbreaking commitment to Fair Trade apparel marks a significant turning point for the apparel industry as a whole.
“They’re showing the world that style and ethics don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and that transparency, sustainability and good businesses go hand in hand.”
These products will be made in factories that are monitored and certified by Fair Trade USA. Consumers will be given independently verified and transparent assurance that the products they buy are made under safe working conditions, where workers have a voice and earn a fair wage.
Patagonia is a founding member of the Fair Labor Association. In 2007, it helped to redefine corporate supply chain transparency through its Footprint Chronicles microsite.
