PRODUCTION CONSIDERATIONS
11. Minimum Production Steps
Reducing production steps lowers emissions, energy consumption, and overall costs, supporting both ecological and economic sustainability. As far as possible, we remove unnecessary production steps, including by selecting materials that require minimal or no additional treatment.
12. Renewable Energy for Production
Recyclable materials support ecological sustainability by reducing waste and potentially re-entering the material cycle. Their retained value also contributes to economic sustainability. For efficient recycling, we try and make products from a minimum of materials. When multiple materials are required, we use those with similar end-of-life pathways and life spans. We avoid difficult-to-separate composites, including laminates, fillers, fire-retardant mixes, and fibre-glass reinforcements, and also add-ons like stickers that complicate recycling.
13. Minimal Energy for Production
Using recycled materials strengthens ecological sustainability by reducing the demand for freshly harvested resources. Wherever feasible, we substitute virgin materials with recycled or reclaimed alternatives.
14. Low Emission Techniques
We use local materials, which are deeply interlinked with the communities that nurture and use them. They sustain livelihoods, uphold cultural traditions, and strengthen social fabrics. And because the health of the land is inseparable from the well-being of these communities, local sourcing naturally fosters more careful, ecologically responsible stewardship.
15. Proper Management of Production Effluents and Waste
Responsible management of production effluents and waste benefits both producers and the broader environment. We ensure that effluents are properly treated, and waste is managed and disposed of, safeguarding both the micro and macro ecosystems.
16. Reduce/Reuse Production Waste
Reducing and reusing production waste limits ecologically harmful outputs. Our strategies for a smaller waste footprint include minimising waste during production, recycling residual materials, and maintaining high production standards to reduce rejected products. Less waste also lowers material and processing costs, enhancing economic sustainability.
17. Indigenous Treatments and Processes
We try and replace toxic conventional materials with non-toxic alternatives to reduce environmental harm and strengthen ecological sustainability. We don't use materials and additives that are inherently toxic—such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated terphenyls (PCTs), lead, cadmium, and mercury. We avoid substances that damage the ozone layer or release harmful emissions during processing—like chlorine, fluorine, bromine, methyl bromide, halons, and CFC-based refrigerants.
18. Consulting Indigenous Communities on Production Issues That Affect Them
In large private-sector corporations, decision-making is most often shaped by profit imperatives, with dispersed ownership structures diluting accountability. Involving local and indigenous communities restores this accountability, embedding social responsibility within the production–consumption system—particularly when these communities form the workforce itself. We argue that such participation is not only ethical but essential.
19. Safe and Healthy Work Environment
We ensure a safe and healthy working environment, because it is essential to social sustainability and directly supports economic sustainability through improved productivity. A responsible workplace is hygienic, well-lit, and properly ventilated, with adequate facilities for eating, sanitation, washing, and changing. Many craftspeople and traditional producers work within family units or as apprentices, often from their homes. In a sector marked by widespread poverty, access to potable water and basic healthcare is frequently limited. When such producers form part of a company’s supply chain, ensuring safe and healthy working conditions must extend beyond the workplace to include these communities as integral contributors.
20. Fair Wages and Benefits to Producers
UNESCO defines a fair wage as compensation that reflects the true value of work and is proportionate to the final retail price of a product. Yet within globalised supply chains, profit-driven outsourcing to the lowest-cost labour often results in wages that undermine both social and economic sustainability. We ensure transparent wage communication and regular, lawful payments to our production team, often above the industry norm. As traditional systems of subsistence erode, many craftspeople now operate on precarious margins. We ensure fair remuneration—particularly for self-employed artisans who routinely undercost their own labour—as it is essential to restoring dignity, value, and sustainability within craft-based production systems.
21. No Child Labour
The International Labour Organization identifies child labour as a driver of intergenerational poverty, denying children access to education and limiting social mobility. As such, it undermines both social sustainability and long-term economic resilience. While children have historically participated in craft production within family-based and master–apprentice systems as learners, the shift to unregulated labour markets transformed this role into one of exploitation. In formalised workshops, child labour became cheap and vulnerable labour rather than a pathway to skill and sustainability. We have a zero-tolerance policy for child labour. We ensure strict compliance with statutory minimum-age regulations, verified through appropriate documentation.
22. No Forced Labour
The International Labour Organization defines forced labour as work undertaken involuntarily, under coercion or threat of penalty. Practices such as debt bondage and illegal sweatshop or agricultural labour fall within this definition and severely undermine social sustainability, disproportionately affecting women and migrant workers. Ethical production demands the absence of coercion. Our production team is free to leave the workplace, retain control of their personal documents, and are never be required to pay deposits or incur debt to secure employment.
23. Fair Working Hours
We ensure fair working hours, which are integral to ethical labour practice and social sustainability. Working time should remain within statutory limits and must not exceed forty-eight regular hours and twelve hours of overtime per week. Workers are entitled to one weekly day of rest after six consecutive days of work, in addition to statutory sick, casual, and parental leave.
24. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining
The right of workers and employers to freely form and join organizations of their choice is fundamental to social sustainability. Employees must also be entitled to collective bargaining and to raise grievances, including through anonymous complaint mechanisms, in accordance with statutory regulations. Our production team is free to establish, join, and participate in workers’ organizations, including trade unions, without requiring the employer's permission or facing retaliation.
25. No Discrimination
Discrimination against producers undermines both social and cultural sustainability. We ensure there is no distinction, exclusion, or preference in matters of compensation, benefits, hiring practices, job allocation, retirement provisions, or access to services based on age, caste, disability, ethnic or national origin, gender, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, pregnancy or parenthood, social background, indigenous status, membership in workers’ organizations (including unions), or any other personal characteristic. We ensure all employees are treated with dignity and respect, and ensure zero tolerance for sexual harassment.
26. Local Employment
Opportunities for localized employment positively contribute to social, cultural, and economic sustainability. When production and employment are rooted locally, the impacts of the production–consumption system—ecological, social, cultural, and economic—remain visible to local communities, enabling timely awareness and response. This proximity creates a feedback loop that makes systemic forms of unsustainability, such as child labour or resource depletion, more readily detectable and therefore easier to monitor, regulate, and address. We strive to employ locally as much as possible.