OUR ETHICAL GUIDELINES
Daughters of Gaea strives to be a fully transparent brand throughout the entire supply chain. Here, we have laid out all of our ethical initiatives, so you can be sure that you know with every purchase, who is making your products, what they are made from and how you are being kind to people and to the planet with every purchase.
Daughters of Gaea’s ethics are based upon creating a positive social impact, using environmentally kind materials in every aspect of the business and offsetting our carbon footprint to become a carbon negative brand.
Our dedication to sustainability runs through every step of the supply chain. Our partnerships with natural dyers, hand block printers, hand loom weavers and other environmentally sound vendors and suppliers make this possible.
We champion fair-trade practices, ethical employment and equal opportunities for all our hand workers. Every decision made in our design, production and business activities consider the ripple effect that apparel production and consumption has into the broader social, political and economic contexts.
Everything from Daughters of Gaea is 100% ethically made and we adhere to a completely transparent supply chain. We use natural materials (and organic where possible) and low impact dyes that are healthy for us and the planet. We will also work in small batches to prevent overproduction and minimise waste. Daughters of Gaea’s carbon footprint will be measured and calculated with a leading carbon footprint tool so that it is offset accurately, and we will only ship in recycled & recyclable, eco-friendly packaging. All this makes us a carbon neutral brand, on the journey to our long-term aim of becoming a carbon negative brand. With this in place, we can live up to our promise of being sustainable across the business.
In order to balance this with our mission to have a positive social impact while collaborating with our artisan partners, we have chosen to work with NEST*. NEST* is a non-profit organisation that aims to correct gender and income imbalances across the globe while building a hand worker economy. It also helps to protect the women who make our collections from discrimination and abuse, ensuring a safe working environment.
Daughters of Gaea pays our artisans a fair living wage, while guarding heritage production techniques, cultural traditions and the environment.
HOW WE CAN MAKE
A DIFFERENCE
Hand working is the second-largest global employer of women. In a world where industry shuts so many doors to women, it’s a vital economy. It also provides a place of safe employment in countries where it’s needed most.
Ongoing training funded by NEST* empowers women in more than 480 artisan groups in over 90 countries. In their network, NEST* have a hand worker force of 160,000 people. Together, NEST* and Daughters of Gaea seeks to preserve cultural traditions and improve the well-being of the women beyond their place of work.
THE ETHICAL GUIDELINES OF OUR ARTISANS
ARTISAN RIGHTS AND WELLBEING
Artisan Rights and Wellbeing: Hand worker manual with formal policies and procedures: a process for hand workers to report grievances; clear & documented communication channels; policies against any form of discrimination, harassment or abuse.
TRANSPARENCY AND LEGAL COMPLIANCE
Demonstration of commitment: by keeping up-to-date, digital records of policies, operations, wages, employment records, employee working hours, production site locations and uses of funding.
CHILD ADVOCACY AND PROTECTION
Formal policies around child labour for handwork: children below the statutory minimum age of employment must not participate in production, consistent with ILO guidelines.
FAIR COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
Artisans must: be paid in a timely manner; be paid a living wage; be provided all statutory benefits; have clear guidelines for overtime and quality deductions (with quality expectations clearly communicated).
HEALTH AND SAFETY / ENVIRONMENTAL CARE
Artisans must: have clean and safe production sites; be trained on machinery, chemicals, sanitation, waste disposal and emergency procedures; show care for the environment in production process.
An ethy accredited brand
We have partnered with ethy to become ethy accredited so that we can ensure our sustainability and ethical guidelines are well established and measured for you the customer to see. Ethy was created to empower businesses and consumers to act for a more sustainable future. They do this through accrediting brands through a proof-backed assessment in six core paths to sustainability. Accredited brands use the awarded ethy trust marks to communicate their sustainability credentials to the public on their products, shop windows and digitally. For shoppers there is the ethy app, which allows anyone to search and shop by their values and discover ethical and sustainable brands across the UK. Their knowledge hub provides how-to guides and inspiration to make simple changes and easy swaps so everyone can have a more sustainable lifestyle over time.
