85%+ of the products in our line are made in a Fair Trade Certified™ factory.
85,000+ workers benefit from Patagonia’s participation in the Fair Trade program.
Why
Apparel workers are among the lowest-paid employees worldwide. Much of the clothing industry has lax social standards that can lead to unsafe working conditions, long hours, low pay, and job discrimination for the workers who are predominately women. The continual demand for fast fashion exacerbates this problem every day.
However, this is not the case across-the-board. Over the years, Patagonia has built a robust social-responsibility program that analyzes and manages the impacts our business has on the workers and communities in our supply chain. Our goal is not just to minimize harm, but to create a positive benefit for the lives that we touch through our business.
Where We Are
Like most clothing companies, we don’t make our own products or own any of the factories that do. We partner with other companies across the globe and work closely with them to mitigate the harm we collectively create through the manufacturing of clothes. We hold our suppliers (and ourselves) to the highest environmental and social standards in the industry. We lean on industry tools and standards to manage this process, and when rigorous enough standards don’t exist, we create them.
Over the years, we have developed several programs to investigate our impact across our business, from our farms to our stores.
